
%. 




4 o 






0^ 



I,'. ""^^0^ oV^^^^^Y" ^^<^' ^^nm>^\ ^^^.^ 







'bV 



'^0' 



O IP 







o V 




^o 








^^ 
















^•^ • 



" o 













aP -i*;^'- ^ 









\ '^^.^ oV^^^^L^^^ ^^^ 



'^0' 






.^ 



^' 














<^^< 






2CJ)e Stutieuts' Series of lEttflltsfj Classics. 



To furnish the educational public with well-edited editions of 
those authors used in, or required for admission to, many of 
the colleges, the publishers announce this new series. The fol- 
lowing books are now ready : 

Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, 30 cts. 

A Ballad Book, .... 54 . . 

Edited by Katharine Lee Bates, Wellesley College. 
Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Kustum, 30 . . 

Webster's First Bunker Hill Oration, 30 . . 

Edited by Louise Manning Hodgkins. 

Introduction to the Writings of John Euskin, . 54 . . 

Macaulay's Essay on Lord Clive, ... 42 . . 

Edited by Vida D. Scudder, Wellesley College. 

George Eliot's Silas Marner, 42 . . 

Scott's Marmion, . . 42 . . 

Edited by Mary Harriott Norris, Instructor, New York. 

Sir Boger de Coverley Papers from The Spectator, . 42 . . 

Edited by A. S. Roe, Worcester, Mass. 

Macaulay's Second Essay on the Earl of Chatham, . 42 . . 

Edited by W. W. Curtis, High School, Pawtucket, R.L 

Johnson's History of Basselas, 42 . . 

Edited by Fred N. Scott, University of Michigan. 

Joan of Arc and Other Selections from De Quincey, . . 42 . . 
Edited by Henry H. Belfield, Chicago Manual Training School. 

Carlyle's The Diamond Necklace 42 . . 

Edited by W. F. Mozier, High School, Ottawa, 111. 

Several others are in preparation, and all are substantially bound 
in cloth. 

LEAOH, SHEWELL, & SANBORN, Publishers, 

BOSTON, NEW YORE, and CHICAGO. 



THE 



DIAMOND NECKLACE. 



BY 

THOMAS CARLYLE. 



EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES, 

BY 

W. F. MOZIER, 
Ottawa (III.) Township High School. 




^f f f y 



LEACH, SHEWELL, & SANBORN, 

Boston and New York. 



\ 



gggSS^SSSSSSSS 

THE UBIAET 
or CONGRESS 

WASHmoreN 

..■WIW^PI ■>■! I 1U III > miJIJPJB 



^ 



Copyright, 1892, by 
w. f. mozier. 



C. J. PETERS & SON, 
Typographers and Electrotypers. 



Press of Berwick & Smith. 



^c;. 



v^ 



•\ 






7^ 



\ 



PREFACE. 



The study of Carlyle may be undertaken with profit 
in the advanced classes of high schools, academies, and 
preparatory schools. While students are to be warned 
against the peculiarities and even barbarisms of his 
style, they may still derive much benefit from the origi- 
nality, force, and suggestiveness of his thought. After 
Shakspeare, Carlyle of all English writers furnishes the 
most abundant material for thought analysis. 

The " Diamond Necklace " has been selected for anno- 
tation in preference to the more commonly read essays, 
for several reasons. It presents specimens of all of 
Carlyle's varied styles : essay, narrative, dramatic,.^and 
descriptive. It is, in miniature, a work of the same 
character as the "French Eevolution," Carlyle's most 
artistic production, and has all the peculiarities, both 
faulty and beautiful, of that work. It is short and 
interesting, and experience with it in the class-room has 
demonstrated the advantages of studying it. Froude, 
in his life of Carlyle, writes : " The * Diamond Neck- 



111 



iv PREFA CE. 

lace ' ... in my opinion, is the very finest illustration 
of Carlyle's literary power." Richard Garnett calls it 
"a masterpiece of tragi-comedy in narrative, proving 
that he had all the power needful for the dramatic 
treatment of history." 

Of course the brief biographical sketch introducing 
this work does not lay claim to completeness or special 
originality. The student is referred to the best sources 
of information about Carlyle in the "Bibliography." 
Numerous notes are necessary to explain Carlyle, be- 
cause of his figurative style, and the large number of 
obscure allusions found in his writings. 

The introductory " Method of Study " is intended to 

be suggestive merely. Each teacher, and even each 

pupil to a certain extent, must be allowed to do his 

work in his own way. 

W. F. MOZIER. 

Ottawa, III., Sept. 1, 1892. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGB 

Preface iii 

Introduction 1 

Thomas Carlyle ... 1 

Early Life 1 

Mrs. Carlyle and the Carlyles' Married Life . 6 

Life at Craigenputtock, 1828-1834 9 

The Diamond Necklace 12 

Life in London, 1834-1881 13 

Portrait and Character 17 

Teachings and Influence 18 

Literary Style 20 

Bibliography 21 

Chronological Outline 23 

Method of Study 25 

The Affair of the Diamond Necklace ...... 27 

Summary of Contents 31 

The Diamond Necklace 37 

Notes , 141 



INTRODUCTION. 



THOMAS CARLYLE. 

EARLY LIFE. 

On the 5th of October, 1795, the "whiff of grapeshot" 
from the guns of Napoleon silenced tlie French Revolution. 
The long agony of anarchy ceased, — to be followed by a 
military despotism, twenty years of devastating war, the 
downfall of Napoleon, and a reaction against the principles of 
the Revolution. Blasted hopes, shattered dreams of an ideal 
democracy, misery, poverty, exhaustion, discontent, despair, 
blind gropings after better things, misdirected or hypocritical 
attempts at reform, characterized the social, political, and 
spiritual life of Europe in the quarter of a century that fol- 
lowed. In the midst of these times and conditions was born 
and grew to manhood the historian and essayist who was to 
describe them in language of fire ; the seer and prophet who 
was to bewail the degeneracy of his age, and draw therefrom 
the lessons of human life. 

Thomas Carlyle was born in the small village of Eccle- 
fechan, Annandale, in the county of Dumfries, Scotland, on 
the 4th of December, 1795. Although at one time he 
wished no biography of himself to be written, there is no 
author whose private or public life is more minutely known. 
Soon after his death, his executor, James Anthony Froude, 

1 



2 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

published his correspondence and journal, his "Reminis- 
cences," written only for his own private inspection, and the 
letters and journal of Mrs. Carlyle. Carlyle had not been cer- 
tain that he wanted any of these published ; certainly he did 
not want them published without revision. He died without 
having revised them, leaving the question of their publication 
to the discretion of his executor. This executor, Mr. Froude, 
published them with practically no revision. Hence we have 
a picture of Carlyle in all his moods, and the most secret 
thoughts, feelings, opinions, and incidents of his life are ex- 
posed to public gaze. This is very interesting, and undoubt- 
edly gives a complete photograph of the man. Every one, 
however, has private opinions, states of mind, and freaks of 
conduct that should be regarded as exempt from publication 
to the world, and it is unfair to the memory of a great man to 
make mankind in general as intimately acquainted with him as 
is his valet, to whom, as the proverb goes, no man is a hero. 
Perhaps an interesting life of our author could not have been 
written in any other way, for as far as external occurrences go 
his life was uneventful. It was devoted to literature entirely. 
He lived quietly, as a writer of books, first at Craigenputtoch, 
and then at London, with nothing to disturb him save the gen- 
eral degeneracy of the times — upon which he pours forth the 
torrents of his wrath — and his neighbors' cats and chickens, 
which excited his anger no less, perhaps even more. 

The birth of the man who was to occupy the high position of 
" censor of the age " was humble. His father, James Carlyle, 
was a village mason. " A more remarkable man than my 
father," says Carlyle, " I have never met in my journey 
through life ; sterling sincerity in thought, word, and deed ; 
most quiet, but capable of blazing into whirlwinds when need- 
ful, and such a flash of just insight and brief natural eloquence 
and emphasis." Both his father and his mother were persons 



INTRODUCTION. 3 

of great force of character and natural strength of mind, though 
neither was cultured in books. They were simple, upright, 
self-reliant, deeply religious people. " No man of my day, or 
hardly any man, can have had better parents," wrote their son. 
Carlyle's family and family life were always dear to him. He 
constantly wrote to the different members, especially to his 
mother, and remembered them with presents and financial aid. 
Although he had a cynical bearing toward most men, for his 
father and his mother, his three brothers and his five sisters, 
he had only the most thoughtful consideration. His deep love 
for his family is one of the striking elements of his character. 

The youthful Thomas learned reading from his mother, and 
arithmetic from his father. He attended the village school, 
where he was reported "complete in English" at the age of 
seven. Latin he learned of the village minister. When he was 
ten years old, he was sent to the Grammar School at Annan, 
where he learned French, Latin, a little algebra and geometry, 
and geography. In "Sartor Resartus," where the history of 
Teufelsdroeckh is partly autobiographical, Carlyle tells of his 
hopeful entrance into Annan and of his disagreeable experi- 
ences there. 

In November, 1809, when he was not yet fourteen, he en- 
tered Edinburgh University, expecting in time to enter the 
ministry. He walked the eighty miles from Ecclefechan to 
Edinburgh. Here he made some progress in Latin and Greek ; 
he hated philosophy, but studied mathematics with enthusiasm. 
He did not win any prizes, owing, probably, to a certain diffi- 
dence. His most valuable experience at the university was 
the companionship of a few chosen friends, of whom he was 
the leader. They all prophesied future greatness for him. 
Like Macaulay and other men of literature, he devoted more 
time to general reading in the university library than to the 
studies of the curriculum. In " Sartor Resartus " he writes: 



4 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

"I took less to rioting than to thinking and reading, which 
latter also I was free to do. Nay, from the chaos of that 
library I succeeded in fishing up more books than had been 
known to the keeper thereof. The foundation of a literary 
life was hereby laid. I learned in my own strength to read 
fluently in almost all cultivated languages, on almost all sub- 
jects and sciences. A certain ground-plan of human nature 
and life began to fashion itself in me, by additional experi- 
ments to be corrected and indefinitely extended." 

In 1814, having completed the usual course in arts, Carlyle 
quitted Edinburgh, with the intention of earning his living by 
teaching until his ordination into the ministry. The next four 
years of his life were spent in school work, first as mathemati- 
cal teacher in the burgh school of Annan, afterwards in a 
somewhat similar position at Kirkaldy, The work of school 
teaching was distasteful to him. His reserved, impatient, and 
irritable temperament and his sarcastic speech were not suited 
to the work. He was neither very popular in the village nor 
very successful in teaching, though he kept his pupils in awe 
without the necessity of flogging them. During these years 
he made the acquaintance of Edward Irving, afterward the 
noted minister and orator, and of Margaret Gordon, the origi- 
nal of " Blumine" in " Sartor Resartus,'' with whom he fell in 
love. His holidays were spent at Mainhill, a farm two miles 
from Ecclefechan, to which his father had now removed. 

In 1818 he resigned his position at Kirkaldy, and having 
now given up the idea of the ministry, went to Edinburgh to 
attend law lectures. Then followed what he calls " the three 
most miserable years" of his life. His studies at Edinburgh, 
his irregular meals and long fasts had brought on dyspepsia, 
from which he was now, and continued to be to the end of his 
life, a constant suff'erer. "The cursed hag, dyspepsia," he 
calls it. "A rat was gnawing at the pit of his stomach." 



INTRODUCTION. 5 

This made him irritable, nervous, and unhappy, and his exag- 
gerated invectives against the disorder, in his letters home, 
often needlessly frightened the good people on the farm. In 
these years, too, he was clouded with doubt and disbelief in 
the religion of his father. Over these doubts he suffered 
much anguish of mind, and finally when the crisis came, after 
"three weeks of total sleeplessness" he found peace. While 
he was attending the law lectures he tried to make a living by 
teaching a few pupils and by writing articles for Brewster's 
" Edinburgh Encyclopaedia," sixteen articles in all. He was 
aided constantly by the sympathy and assistance of his family. 
During these years he read much in the university library, 
and diligently studied German, which was to have so impor- 
tant an influence on his thought and his style. His favorite 
author was Goethe, who seems to have been of great help to 
his spiritual life. Carlyle had given up the study of law as 
distasteful, and was again at sea as to his life-work. Yet he 
seems to have felt that there was somethino- within him of 
worth, and that ultimately it must find expression in literature. 
As early as 1814 he had written to a friend: "Yet think not 
I am careless of literary fame. No ; Heaven knows that ever 
since I have been able to form a wish, the wish of beins: 
known has been foremost. O Fortune ! thou that givest unto 
each his portion in this dirty planet, bestow (if it shall please 
thee) coronets, and crowns, and principalities, and purses, 
and pudding, and powers upon the great and noble and fat 
ones of the earth. Grant me that with a heart of independ- 
ence, imyielding to thy favors and unbending to thy frowns, 
I may attain to literary fame ; and though starvation be my 
lot, I will smile that I have not been born a kino-." Those 
who knew him, even in these obscure days, felt that there 
was genius there. One of his friends writes, "I hope that 
the name of Carlyle, at least, will be inseparably connected 



6 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

with the literary history of the nineteenth century." Miss 
Gordon had written, " Genius will render you great." Irving 
wrote in 1820, " Would that I could contribute to it [Carlyle's 
happiness] , and one of the richest and most powerful minds 
I know should not now be struggling with obscurity and a 
thousand obstacles." 

From the gloom and poverty of these Edinburgh experi- 
ences, Irving rescued him by securing for him a position as 
private tutor to the children of the Bullers, a rich Anglo-Indian 
family. He held this position for two years, giving it up early 
in 1824. He then visited London and other cities of England, 
and made a trip to Paris, where he unconsciously gathered 
impressions for his " French Revolution." During the years 
1823-24 he had contributed a " Life of Schiller" to the Lon- 
don Magazine, and in 1824 a translation of " Legendre's Geom- 
etry," with an original essay on "Proportion." In the same 
year appeared his translation of Goethe's " Wiihelm Meister," 
his first notable work. A somewhat unsettled life at Hoddam 
Hill and at his father's new farm at Scotsbrig was changed 
now by his marriage to Miss Welsh, of Haddington. 

MRS. CARLYLE AND THE CARLYLES' MARRIED LIFE. 

Jane Baillie Welsh was born at Haddington, July 14, 1801. 
Her father, Dr. John Welsh, was a prosperous and cultured 
gentleman, a descendant of John Knox. Her mother was said 
to be a descendant of William Wallace. Jane was a bright, 
witty, lovable, determined little maiden. She learned rap- 
idly at school, and insisted on studying Latin " like a boy." 
*' Jeannie Welsh, the flower of Haddington," she was called. 
She was in many ways a remarkable woman. She had a fine 
mind, and had cultivated it to no little extent. A certain wil- 
fulness and capriciousness, together with a habit of brilliant 
but sharp comment upon unpleasant persons and things, which 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

increased after her association with Carlyle, added piquancy 
to her character. She had been introduced to Carlyle in 1821 
by Irving. Irving had been her teacher, and in time their 
intimacy grew into a hope that they might marry. This was 
prevented, however, by Irving's previous engagement to 
a Miss Martin, from which, though now distasteful to Irving, 
Miss Martin refused to release him. Carlyle corresponded 
with Miss Welsh and sent her books. This intimacy soon 
grew into love on Carlyle's part, and though Miss Welsh 
thought at first she could not love him sufficiently to marry 
him, she had great respect and admiration for him, and these 
finally developed into a feeling that she could marry no one 
else. They were married at Haddington, Oct. 17, 1826, 

The publication of Mrs. Carlyle's letters and journal has ex- 
posed all the secret troubles of their married life, and has made 
it impossible to give a sketch of Carlyle's life and character 
without considering, in some detail, the character of Mrs. Car- 
lyle, and of the married life of the Carlyles. In these letters 
Mrs. Carlyle complains bitterly of her lot. After forty years 
of married life she said, "My dear, whatever you do, never 
marry a man of genius." She is reported to have said, "I 
married for ambition, and am miserable." It seems that Car- 
lyle and his wife were, in a sense, unsuited to each other. Un- 
doubtedly each loved the other, yet neither had the ability to 
call out the expression of that love from the other. Carlyle 
was absorbed in his work, and paid little attention to his wife, 
leaving her to do the menial work of the household, the 
managing of servants, the mending, the cleaning. He had 
his sphere of literary composition, where, solitary and com- 
plaining, he struggled with sublime thoughts ; she had her 
sphere of domestic duties, where, solitary and complaining, 
she struggled with servants, with cooking, with house vermin. 
She was undoubtedly fitted for better things. The woman 



8 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

who could write the brilliant letters that she wrote and could 
daily attract to her drawing-room the wits and wise men of 
London, must necessarily have felt the drudgery of housework. 
Yet, she had a kind of genius for it, and would have enjoyed 
it had her husband properly appreciated her efforts. All her 
sacrifices he seemed to regard as a matter of course, her duty, 
for the doing of which no thanks were expected. She did 
and suffered much, that he might live quietly, after his own 
peculiar manner, and write his books in solitude. She shielded 
him from the petty annoyances of life. His dyspepsia made 
him very particular as to the food he ate ; she learned to cook 
that he might have everything to his taste. He was irritable 
and violent of temper. During their early married life, meal- 
time brought on a kind of nervous terror for Mrs. Carlyle ; 
for if the meal was cooked properly Carlyle said nothing, but 
if anything was under-done or over-done, he flew into a rage. 
He was sensitive to noises ; she bribed, wheedled, begged, 
used every effort to suppress neighboring cocks and other 
nuisances. While Carlyle looked upon these acts of kindness 
as a matter of course, it was not because he did not love his 
wife, but because he was preoccupied with his work, and was 
naturally undemonstrative. He really had a deep affection 
for her. " In great matters," she says herself, "he is always 
kind and considerate; but these little attentions which we 
women attach so much importance to he was never in the habit 
of rendering to any one." 

If he failed in attention to her and in recognition of her ser- 
vices to him, she too failed as an ideal companion. She did 
not enter sufficiently into his work. She was nervous, ini- 
table, and sarcastic, as well as he. Indeed, one cause of the 
unhappiness of their married life was that they were too much 
alike. Yet after all this has been said, their letters show that 
they had much pleasure in life. It was only after Mrs. Car- 



INTRODUCTION, 9 

lyle's death, when he came to look over her letters and jour- 
nal, that Carlyle at length realized the unhappiness he had 
caused her. Then his remorse was heartrending, and his ex- 
aggerated imprecations upon himself were pitiable. "Five 
minutes more of your dear company in this world," he writes 
in the " Keminiscences." " Oh, that I had you yet but five min- 
utes to tell you all." But he falls back in despair, with the 
exclamation, "Ah me! Too late, too late." To the world 
their marriage seemed happy enough, until the published 
"Reminiscences" and letters after Carlyle^s death told all 
and more than all. 

LIFE AT CRAIGENPUTTOCH, 1828-1834. 

After their marriage, the Carlyles lived for two years at 
Comely Bank, Edinburgh, where they made the acquaintance 
of several literary people, among them Jeflfrey, the editor of 
the Edinburgh Review, who accepted Carlyle as a contributor to 
the Review. A few articles on German literature were contrib- 
uted, but the need of money and the necessity of living cheaply 
became so pressing that it was decided, much against Mrs. 
Carlyle's inclinations, to remove to Craigenputtoch, a farm 
belonging to Mrs. Carlyle. 

They went to this place in May, 1828. Craigenputtoch was 
a lonely moorland farm, situated sixteen miles from Dumfries 
and a day's journey east of Ecclefechan. " The dreariest spot 
in all the British isles. The nearest cottage is more than a 
mile distant from it ; the elevation, seven hundred feet above 
the sea, stunts the trees and limits the garden produce to the 
hardiest vegetables. The house is gaunt and hungry-looking. 
It stood with the scanty fields attached as an island in a sea 
of morass. The landscape is unrelieved either by grace or 
grandeur, mere undulating hills of grass and heather, with 
peat bogs in the hollows between them. A sterner spot is 



10 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

hardly to be found in Scotland." (Froude's Life of Carlyle.) 
For months at a time the Carlyles had no visitors, not even a 
passing stranger. Mrs. Carlyle said the moors were so still 
that she could hear the sheep nibbling the grass a quarter 
of a mile away. Carlyle called it " a devil's den," and a 
" blasted paradise." In this desolate spot the Carlyles lived 
for six years, with one servant and an occasional boy to help 
them. Carlyle wrote in solitude, wrestling with the thoughts 
that were trying to find expression, often taking long walks 
and rides on the moor, alone. Mrs. Carlyle's life was far from 
pleasant. Their lack of money and Carlyle's irritable sensitive- 
ness to household disorder compelled her to cook, scour, mend, 
and do the work of a servant. She saw too little of her hus- 
band, who was absorbed in his work. The work and the loneli- 
ness affected her health, and developed, or increased, a nervous 
disorder from which she was never afterward free. In fact, it 
finally caused her death. For Carlyle, however, it was a ben- 
eficial experience. His health improved, his mind strength- 
ened, his genius developed. He writes in the "Reminis- 
cences : " " We were not unhappy at Craigenputtoch ; perhaps 
these were our happiest days. Useful, continual labor, essen- 
tially successful ; that makes even the moor green. I found I 
could do fully twice as much work in a given time there, as 
with my best effort was possible in London, such the interrup- 
tions, etc." He writes to his brother John in 1828: "I write 
hard all day, and then Jane and I, both learning Spanish for 
the last month, read a chapter of Don Quixote between dinner 
and tea, and are already half through the first volume and 
eager to persevere. After tea I sometimes write again, being 
dreadfully slow at the business, and then go over to Alick [his 
brother who was working the farm] and Mary and smoke my 
last pipe with them ; and so I end the day, having done little 
good perhaps, but almost no ill that I could help to any of 



INTRODUCTION. 11 

God's creatures. So pass my days, except that sometimes I 
stroll with my axe or bill in the plantations, and when I am 
not writing I am reading." 

The monotony of their life at Craigenputtoch was varied by 
a winter spent in London and a second winter in Edinburgh. 
The Jeffreys came to visit them twice. In 1833 the Carlyles 
were visited by Emerson, who had turned aside from the 
beaten paths of travel to talk with a man whose genius he 
recognized, though it was not yet recognized by Carlyle's 
countrymen. This visit of Emerson was the beginning of a 
close friendship, which lasted for nearly fifty years, the cor- 
respondence of Emerson and Carlyle being one of the most 
cheerful features of Carlyle's life. Emerson afterward acted 
as Carlyle's agent in America, and thus helped him finan- 
cially at a time when he had great need of such help. Life at 
Craigenputtoch was enlivened also by letters and presents from 
Goethe, who appreciated Carlyle's work in German literature 
and perceived his genius. During the six years at Craigen- 
puttoch, Carlyle contributed to the Edinburgh Review, the 
Foreign Review, and Fraser^s Magazine the articles that now 
form the first three volumes of his '* Miscellanies." At first 
they were chiefly on German subjects, with the exception of the 
essay on "Burns," one of Carlyle's best; afterward the sub- 
jects were more varied. Carlyle's fortunes had many " ups 
and downs " during this period. In 1831 we find his popular- 
ity on the decline, and Carlyle with only five pounds, and no 
more expected for months. He had devoted much of his time 
to the writing of " Sartor Resartus," and this the publishers 
had refused. It was afterward printed mFrasers. But other 
articles were received, and fortune revived somewhat. Car- 
lyle was beginning his studies of the French Revolution, with 
a view to writing on that subject. Ready access to a large 
library was necessary, and it was finally decided to remove to 



12 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

London. The last Y\^riting of Carlyle's at Craigenputtoch 
was 

THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 

In 1832 Carlyle had contributed an article on " Diderot" to 
the Foreign Quarterly. This had excited interest in the French 
Revolution, and in 1833, during the winter spent at Edinburgh, 
he had collected material for articles* on '• Cagliostro " and 
the "Diamond Necklace."" In March, 1833, he writes his 
brother: "lam partly minded next to set forth some small 
narrative about the Diamond Necklace, once so celebrated a 
business." And later : " I think I shall fasten ui^on that Neck- 
lace business (to prove myself in the narrative style) and 
commence it (sending for books to Edinburgh) in some few 
days." He did commence, and two months later, Dec. 24, 
1833, he writes: "I have also, with an effort, accomplished 
the projected piece on the Diamond Necklace. It was fin- 
ished this day week ; really a queer kind of thing, of some 
forty and odd pages. Jane at first thought we should print 
it at our own charges, set our name on it, and send it out in 
God's name. Neither she nor I are now so sure of it, but will 
consider it. My attempt was to make reality ideal ; there is 
considerable significance in that notion of mine, and I have 
not yet seen the limit of it, nor shall till I have tried to go as 
far as it will carry me. The story of the Diamond Necklace is 
all told in that paper with the strictest fidelity, yet in a kind of 
musical way." He offered the article to the Foreign Quarterly, 
but the editor refused it. Carlyle himself calls it '* a singu- 
lar sort of thing, which is very far from pleasing me." He, 
however, went to work to improve it, reading new books on 
the subject and making additions ; and in February, 1834, we 
find him writing in his journal, "What to do with that Dia- 
mond Necklace affair I wrote ? must correct it in some points 



INTRODUCTION. 13 

which these new books have illuminated a little." It lay thus 
awaiting a publisher for three years, but was finally published 
in Fraser's Magazine, in the spring of 1837, a few months 
before the publication of the "French Revolution." It earned 
Carlyle little fame and little money, and is not so famous as 
many of his other works even now, yet it is, in its way, one of 
the best of his writings. 

LIFE IN LONDON, 1834-1881. 

The Carlyles arrived in London, and in June, 1834, began 
housekeeping in the little old-fashioned house at No. 5 Cheyne 
Row, Chelsea. Carlyle describes it: " We lie safe at a bend 
of the river, away from all the great roads, have air and 
quiet hardly inferior to Craigenputtoch, an outlook from the 
back windows into mere leafy regions with here and there a 
red high-peaked old roof looking through, and see nothing of 
London, except by day the summits of St. Paul's Cathedral 
and Westminster Abbey, and by night the gleam of the great 
Babylon affronting the peaceful skies. The house itself is 
probably the best we have ever lived in — a right old, strong, 
roomy, brick house, built near 150 years ago, and likely to 
see three races of these modern fashionables fall before it 
comes down. . . . Chelsea is a singular heterogeneous kind 
of spot, very dirty and confused in some places, quite beauti- 
ful in others, abounding with antiquities and the traces of 
great men — Sir Thomas More, Steele, Smollett, etc." In 
this place the Carlyles were to live the remainder of their 
lives. Here the " Seer of Chelsea " wrote his greatest works, 
and uttered the oracular warnings that brought pilgrims to 
No. 5 as to a second Delphi. 

The London life of the Carlyles was without stirring expe- 
riences. They lived quietly and economically. Old friends 



14 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

and many new ones were constant visitors. Leigh Hunt was 
their neighbor. John Stuart Mill helped Carlyle in the world 
of letters. Other friends were John Sterling, whose biogra- 
phy Carlyle wrote, and Lord and Lady Ashburton. Other 
visitors at the house were Mazzini, Tennyson, Forster, 
Dickens. Later friends of Carlyle were Ruskin, Froude, 
Prof. Masson, Prof. Tyndall. Both Carlyle and Mrs. Carlyle 
frequently made visits with friends outside of London. In- 
deed, it was Carlyle's practice, after completing a book, to 
take a long vacation, travelling and visiting his friends. In 
London, as at Craigenputtoch, Carlyle was absorbed in his 
work. He left Mrs. Carlyle much to herself, and she felt the 
loneliness and the household cares. Carlyle was considerably 
disturbed by neighboring noises, which his wife always suc- 
ceeded in suppressing. Finally, to be rid of them, he had a 
sound-proof room constructed at the top of the house, which, 
alas, proved to be not sound-proof. His dyspepsia and bil- 
iousness continued, and the labor of composition was always 
grievous to him, yet he undoubtedly enjoyed life more than 
his exao-o-erated lano;uao;e would lead one to believe. 

When Carlyle reached London none of the works that have 
made him famous had yet been written. Publishers were 
avoiding him. They recognized a certain genius in him, but 
had come to the conclusion that it was an erratic genius, which 
was being wasted upon extravagant nonsense expressed in a 
barbarous style. In February, 1835, he writes that it is now 
"some twenty-three months since I have earned one penny 
by the craft of literature." 

All this was changed in 1837 by the publication of the 
" French Revolution." It was at once recoo^nized as a work 
of superior merit, and its success was unmistakable. As a 
vivid, graphic, life-like picture of the Revolution, it has no 
equal. Its publication marks a new era in history writing. 



INTRODUCTION. 15 

Carlyle's writings were now no longer rejected by autocratic 
editors and publishers. 

The following year " Sartor Resartus," previously published 
serially in Fraser's, was published in book form. It is a 
weird, almost grotesque, presentation of Carlyle's philosophy, 
in which the decayed institutions of society are represented as 
worn-out clothing, only fit to be cast off. 

During these and the following years, Carlyle delivered 
four courses of public lectures in London on " German Litera- 
ture," " The History of Literature," " The Revolutions of Mod- 
ern Europe," and " Hero-Worship." These lectures were re- 
ceived with much delight by fashionable society, Carlyle's broad 
accent, sing-song delivery, vehement speech, and originality 
seeming to take hold of the popular taste. In "Chartism" 
(1839) and " Past and Present" (1843) he attacks the corrup- 
tions of modern society and sets forth his opinions of modern 
reforms. In 1845 appeared the "Life and Letters of Oliver 
Cromwell," a work that has greatly modified men's opinions of 
the Protector. Carlyle was now recognized as a leader in lit- 
erature. His income was ample, his pen feared and respected, 
his fame assured. " Latter-day Pamphlets " was published 
in 1850, and the "Life of Sterling" the following year. 
Carlyle's last great work, taking thirteen years for its com- 
pletion, was the "History of Frederick II., commonly called 
the Great," in six volumes, the first two published in 1858, 
the last in 1865. This work is a marvel of historical research, 
and its descriptions of battles are so exact and minute that 
it is said to be used as a text-book by German military stu- 
dents. 

Before the completion of this work, Mrs. Carlyle's health 
had failed alarmingly. Carlyle became aware of her ill health 
at last, and grew considerate and tender as he had not been 
before. In 1863 she was knocked down by a cab and injured 



16 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

■• 
seriously, but in time was believed to be growing better. In 
1865 Carlvle was elected to the rectorship of Edinburgh Uni- 
versity, and in April, 1866, went to Edinburgh to deliver the 
rectorial address. Prof, Tyndall telegraphed to Mrs. Carlyle 
that the oration was "a perfect triumph." Carlyle lingered 
in Scotland a few days, and while there received the unex- 
pected and overwhelming news that Mrs. Carlyle had been 
found dead in her carriage, after taking a drive through the 
streets of London, the afternoon of April 21. 

Carlyle never recovered from this blow, and though he lived 
fifteen years after the death of his wife, he dwelt secluded 
and did little work. Mrs. Carlyle was buried at Haddington, 
where her husband had these words inscribed on her tomb : 
" Here likewise now rests Jane Welsh Carlyle, Spouse of 
Thomas Carlyle, Chelsea, London. She was born at Hadding- 
ton 14th July, 1801, only daughter of the above John Welsh, 
and of Grace Welsh, Caplegill, Dumfriesshire, his wife. In her 
bright existence she had more sorrows than are common ; but 
also a soft invincibility, a clearness of discernment, and a 
loyalty of heart, Avhich are rare. For forty years she was the 
true and ever-loving helpmate of her husband, and by act and 
word unweariedly forwarded him, as none else could, in all 
of worthy, that he did or attempted. She died at London, 21st 
April, 1865 ; suddenly snatched away from him, and the light 
of his life, as if gone out." 

His only writings during these fifteen years, were the "Rem- 
iniscences," a few articles contributed to magazines, and a se- 
ries of articles published in one volume, in 1875, on '• The Early 
Kings of Norway," and " The Portraits of John Knox." Palsy 
of the right hand prevented him from writing several years 
before his death. He lived, honored at home and abroad, and 
tenderly cared for by his friends. His powers gradually failed, 
and he died Feb. 4, 1881. Burial in Westminster Abbey was 



INTRODUCTION. IT 

offered, but this was contrary to his previously expressed wish, 
and was declined. He was buried at Ecclefechan, in the yard 
of the old Kirk, where with his beloved parents he sleeps the 
last sleep. 

PORTRAIT AND CHARACTER. 

Emerson thus describes Carlyle as he appeared in 1833 : 
" He was tall and gaunt with a cliff-like brow, and holding his 
extraordinary powers of conversation in easy command ; cling- 
ing to his northern accent with evident relish ; full of lively 
anecdote, and with a streaming humor which flooded every- 
thing he looked upon." A recent biographer, Richard Gar- 
nett, describes him as he delivered his lectures in 1837 : 
" There he stood, a spare figure, lacking one inch of six feet; 
long but compact of head, which seemed smaller than it 
really was ; rugged of feature ; brow abrupt like a low cliff, 
craggy over eyes deep-set, large, piercing, between blue and 
dark gray, full of rolling fire ; firm but flexible lips, no way 
ungenial ; dark, short, thick hair, not crisp, but wavy as rock- 
rooted, tide-swayed weed ; complexion bilious-ruddy or ruddy- 
bilious, according as Devil or Baker might be prevailing with 
him." 

Carlyle was a man of great force and originality of charac- 
ter. He was sincere above all things. The spirit that dwelt 
within him was that of truth and hatred of sham. He refused 
to write popular literature, even though it paid well, because 
it could not come from him honestly. He chose to write his 
own convictions in his own way, and brave unpopularity and 
starvation. His persistency and sincerity at length compelled 
the world to take him at his own terms. He felt that the times 
were out of joint, and that it was his mission, as a prophet and 
teacher, to denounce their falsity and set forth the truth. A 
motto of his younger days was the emblem of the wasting 



18 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

candle and the inscription, " Terar, dum prosim,'''' '* Let me be 
wasted, so I be of use." 

He was a strano;e character. He inherited from his father 
stern convictions, deep feeling, and a power of metaphorical 
language. He had a violent temper as a child, and ill health 
did not improve it. He was irritable, impatient of inteiTup- 
tion, and as his mother said, "gey (very) ill to live with." 
His exaggeration and his metaphorical speech are at times 
grotesque and humorous. He calls chickens that disturb him 
"demon fowls;" incompetent servants are "cows," "moon- 
calves," " scandalous randies." The world is a " dog's cage," 
a " simmering Tophet," " Pigdom," " Gigmanity." Similar 
exaggerated and figurative epithets are applied to contempo- 
rary authors and to all persons and things that fall within the 
notice of his cynical, scornful, and sarcastic speech. He was 
at times deeply depressed and looked with gloom upon the 
weakness of men and the degeneracy of the times. He could 
not take a cheerful view of life, and seems to be struggling 
constantly against its ills, though his habit of exaggeration 
magnifies the impression of his unhappiness. While his ver- 
bal memory was not so wonderful as Macaulay's, his greater 
originality, his gift of metaphor, his humor, his fluency, made 
him an equally extraordinary conversationist. Though he 
always spoke with a broad Annandale accent, his voice was 
singularly expressive and attractive. 

TEACHINGS AND INFLUENCE. 

The cardinal doctrines of Carlyle's teachings may be spoken 
of briefly. " Do thy duty, the duty that lies nearest thee ; the 
next duty will already have become clear." Work, produce, 
do not lie idle. This teaching of Carlyle's has sometimes 
been called " the Gospel of Labor." Be true to yourself and 



INTRODUCTION. 19 

to your convictions. Seek the truth. Avoid all sham, hypoc- 
risy, and cant, of which the world, especially the modern 
world with its false institutions, is so largely composed. 
Renounce self that you may obey the call of Work and Duty. 
His political doctrines are not so sound, according to our way 
of thinking. Democracy he had no faith in. " All things 
that we see standing accomplished in the world are properly 
the outer material result, the practical realization and embodi- 
ment of Thoughts that dwell in the Great Men sent into the 
world : the soul of the whole world's history, it may be justly 
considered, were the history of these." The mass of mankind 
must bow before these heaven-sent heroes and yield to them 
implicit obedience. He believed not in the government of 
the many, but in an aristocracy in the primary sense of that 
word — a government of the best. He had little sympathy 
with the attempts at reform that he saw made about hii^ and 
denounced many of these attempts in violent language. Yet 
he offers no better way, brings forward no practical method, 
by which the "vile age of Pinchbeck" may be made less 
vile. 

Carlyle's influence on modern thought has been great. It 
is the influence, however, of the prophet and exhorter, not of 
the statesman and the man of action. His work for mankind 
was to inspire men to act, not to show them how to act. By 
his powerful and soul-stirring voice he starts men from their 
lethargy, and bids them be up and doing, though he does not 
tell them definitely what to do. He comes as one crying in 
the wilderness, '• Prepare ye the way of the Truth." When 
the Truth has illumined you, what you should do will be made 
clear. His contribution to humanity and progress lies not in 
what he has himself accomplished, but in what he has inspired 
other noble minds to accomplish. 



20 THOMAS CARLYLE. 



LITERARY STYLE. 

The best analysis of Carlyle''s style is to be found in Prof. 
Minto's "Manual of English Prose Literature." A good brief 
description is the following short extract from Prof. Nicholas 
' ' Thomas Carlyle : '' — 

Carlyle is seldom obscure ; the energy of his manner is part 
of his matter ; its abruptness corresponds to the abruptness of 
his thought, which proceeds often, as it were, by a series of 
electric shocks that threaten to break through the formal re- 
straints of an ordinary sentence. He writes like one who must, 
under the spell of his own winged words ; at all hazards, deter- 
mined to convey his meaning ; willing like Montaigne, to "de- 
spise no phrase of those that run in the streets," to sj^eak in 
strange tongues, and even to coin new words for the expression 
of a new emotion. It is his fashion to care as little for rounded 
phrase as for logical argument, and he rather convinces and 
persuades by calling uj) a succession of feelings than by a train 
of reasoning. . . . He was, let us grant, though a powerful, 
a one-sided historian, a twisted, though in some aspects a great 
moralist; but he was in every sense a mighty painter, now 
dipping his pencil "in the hues of earthquake and eclipse," 
now etching his scenes with the tender touch of a Millet. . . . 
The most Protean quality of Carlyle's genius is his humor : 
now lighting up the crevices of some quaint fancy, now shin- 
ing over his serious thought like sunshine over the sea, it is at 
its best as finely quaint as that of Cervantes, more humane than 
Swift's. There is in it, as in all the highest humor, a sense of 
apparent contrast, even of contradiction, in life, of matter for 
laughter in sorrow and tears in joy. He seems to check him- 
self, and, as if afraid of wearing his hearten his sleeve, throws 
in absurd illustrations of serious propositions, partly to show 
their universal range, partly in obedience to an instinct of 
reserve, to escape the reproach of sermonizing and to cut the 
story short. Carlyle's grotesque is a mode of his golden si- 
lence, a sort of Socratic irony in the indulgence of which he 
laughs at his readers and at himself. 



INTRODUCTION. 21 

The following analysis is from Leslie Stephens's excellent ar- 
ticle on "Carlyle," in the "Dictionary of National Biogra- 
phy : " " His style, whether learned at home or partly acquired 
under the influence of Irving and Richter (see Froude, i., 396), 
faithfully reflects his idiosyncrasy. Though his language is 
always clear, and often pure and exquisite English, its habitual 
eccentricities offended critics, and make it the most dano^erous 
of models . They are pardonable as the only fitting embodiment 
of his graphic power, his shrewd insight into human nature, 
and his peculiar humor, which blends sympathy for the suf- 
fering with scorn for fools. His faults of style are the result of 
the perpetual straining for emphasis of which he was conscious, 
and which must be attributed to an excessive nervous irrita- 
bility seeking relief in strong language, as well as to a super- 
abundant intellectual vitality. Conventionality was for him the 
deadly sin. Every sentence must be alive to its finger's end. 
As a thinker he judges by intuition instead of calculation. In 
history he tries to see the essential fact stripped of the glosses 
of pedants ; in politics, to recognize the real forces masked by 
constitutional mechanism ; in philosophy, to hold the living 
spirit imtrammelled by the dead letter." 

BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

A few of the leading authorities for Carlyle's biography and 
work are the following: His "Reminiscences," edited by J. 
A. Froude ; Froude's " Life of Carlyle," four volumes ; " Let- 
ters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle," edited by Froude ; 
Correspondence of Carlyle and Emerson, edited by Charles 
Eliot Norton; "Carlyle," in the "Great Writers" series, by 
Richard Garnett, with an exhaustive bibliography by John P. 
Anderson, to which the reader is referred ; and the article on 
Carlyle by I^eslie Stephens, in the " Dictionary of National Bi- 



22 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

ography," vol. IX. The latest ''Life of Carlyle^' is by Prof. 
Nichol, in the "English Men of Letters Series/' Harper and 
Bros., 1892. The innumerable criticisms of Carlyle in the 
magazines may be found through the guidance of "Poole's 
Index of Periodical Literature." 



CHRONOLOGICAL OUTLINES. 



1795. Dec. 4, Carlyle born at Ecclefeclian. 
1809-14. At Edinburgh University. 
1814-16. Mathematical teacher at Annan. 
1816-18. Teacher at Kirkaldy. 

1818-22. At Edinburgh. Contributes to Brewster's Edinburgh 
Encyclopedia. 
1822-24. Tutor to the BuUers. 

1824. Translations of Legendre's Geometry and Trigonometry and 
Goethe's Wilhelm Meister. 

1825. Publishes Life of Schiller, previously published in London 
Magazine. 

1826. Oct. 17, marries Miss Welsh. 
1826-28. At Comely Bank, Edinburgh. 

1828-34. At Craigenputtoch. Writes Sartor Besartus and The Dia- 
mond Necklace. 
1834. Eemoves to Chelsea. 

1837. The French Revolution, his first literary success. 

1838. Sartor Resartus published. 

1839. Critical and Miscellaneous Essays. 

1840. Chartism. 

1841. Heroes and Hero-Worship. 
1843. Past and Present. 

1845. Life and Letters of Oliver Cromwell. 

1850. Latter-day Pamphlets. 

1851. Life of John Sterling . 

1863. Occasional Discourse on the Nigger Question. 

23 



24 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

1858-65. History of Frederick the. Great. 
1866. Rector's address at Edinburgh. 

1866. April 21, death of Mrs. Carlyle. 

1867. Shooting Niagara, and After ? 

1874. Receives the Prussian Order of Merit. 

1875. The Early Kings of Norway ; also an Essay on the Portraits 
of John Knox. 

1881. Feb. 4, Carlyle dies. 



Ws. 



METHOD OF STUDY. 



The following method of studying an English classic is sug- 
gested to students. Of course there are other methods as 
good, perhaps better, but it is believed these suggestions will 
be found helpful. They are made brief intentionally, and 
cast in the form of rules, that there may be no mistake as to 
what the student is asked to do. 

(a.) The first study of the lesson should be a general pre- 
liminary reading, without the use of reference books, its object 
being to get the substance, plot, or " story" of the lesson. 

(6.) The lesson should then be read a second time, consult- 
ing books of reference for the meaning and pronunciation of 
unfamiliar words, obscure allusions, historical, biographical, 
and geographical references, etc. Keep a note-book in which 
are to be recorded the results of these investiofations. Make 
your notes brief, and let them contain only facts essential to 
the understanding of the text. Do not record many dates. 
Do not accumulate in your note-books a mass of facts you will 
not be likely to remember. Transfer to your minds the infor- 
mation contained in your notes. The object of this reading is 
to gain a complete and intelligent understanding of the mean- 
ing of every word and sentence ; that is, to grasp the author's 
thought completely. The books of reference in which most 
of the information souo-ht for will be found are unabrido^ed 
dictionaries, especially "Webster's International" and the 
"Century Dictionary ; " Lippincott's "Gazetteer" and "Bio- 
graphical Dictionary;" Brewer's " Reader's Hand-book " and 

25 



26 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

the same author's "Historic Note-book;" classical and Bible 
dictionaries; encyclopaedias, especially the " Britannica," if 
its index be consulted. 

(c.) Now read the lesson a third time. The new knowledge 
you will have gained by your second reading will enable you 
to understand thoroughly what you read and will add a new 
enjoyment. 

(d.) The lesson should now be read critically, for the pur- 
pose of analyzing the author's style and qualities as an artist. 
Note any new characteristics of style that may appear in the 
lesson and make a record of your observations. Ask yourself 
such questions as the following : Could the author have ex- 
pressed his meaning better in such and such a place ? Why is 
such and such an expression particularly appropriate ? Where- 
in, in a notable way, does the author show his art or skill ? Has 
he violated any rules of art ? What part does the lesson play 
in the development of the plot, or the trend of the argument ? 

(e.) In all your reading use your imagination. As you read, 
try to call up before your mind a picture of the objects or the 
scenes described and the incidents narrated. Think while you 
read. Let your reading be suggestive. 

(/.) When reading aloud during the recitation, give special 
attention to holding the head erect and to reading clearly ; 
remembering that to be a good reader is not to read theatri- 
cally, in an unnatural tone, but to read in a straightforward, 
natural way, with good expression of the sentiment, pronoun- 
cing correctly and enunciating clearly. 

(g.) Passages that please you or "familiar quotations" 
should be memorized, for the purpose of training the memory 
and of enriching the mind. 

(h.) Special work in outlining, abstracting, characterization, 
biography of the author, composition, etc., should be fre- 
quently assigned by the instructor. 



THE AFFAIR OF THE DIAMOND 
NECKLACE. 



Among the host of miserable mistakes and crimes that pre- 
ceded the French Revolution, exciting hostile public opinion 
and intense hatred of the monarchy and existing institutions, 
the affair of the Diamond Il^ecklace is prominent. 

Prince Louis de Rohan was a profligate, wealthy, and vain 
cardinal of the church. He had been Ambassador of France at 
Vienna under Louis XV., and while there had' incurred the 
displeasure of the Empress Maria Theresa and of her daugh- 
ter, Marie Antoinette, then recently married to the Dauphin of 
France. When Marie Antoinette became queen at the acces- 
sion of Louis XVI., Rohan was recalled from Vienna and ban- 
ished from the court at Versailles. To a man of his character 
of mind and way of living this was little short of perpetual 
imprisonment. He made every effort to regain the favor of 
the queen and to restore himself at court, but in vain. 

About this time one Boehmer, court jeweller of France, had 
made a beautiful necklace composed of five hundred diamonds 
and valued at one million eight hundred thousand livres, or 
between four Imndred and four hundred and fifty thousand 
dollars. He tried to sell this magnificent diamond necklace 
to the king, but the queen refused it on the ground of expense. 
Poor Boehmer was distracted, and his vehement efforts to sell 

27 



28 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

the necklace became a court joke. At this stage of affairs an 
adventuress came to his assistance. 

Jeanne de Saint-Remi was an illegitimate descendant of the 
royal house of Valois. She had married a gendarme named 
Lamotte, and by virtue of her descent now called him Count, 
and herself Countess de Lamotte. Living by hook or crook 
and buzzing about the outer circles of the court, she learned 
of the troubles of both Rohan and Boehmer, and a colossal and 
daring project of fraud shaped itself in her brain. Gain- 
ing the acquaintance of Rohan in January, 1784, she duped him 
into believing that she was intimate with the queen and that the 
queen wanted the diamond necklace. Cagliostro, a noted as- 
trologer and magician, was called in to befuddle further the 
brain of the vain and foolish cardinal. 

Rohan was led to believe that the queen wished him to act 
as her agent in purchasing the necklace, which the king would 
not allow her to purchase ; that she would afterward pay for 
it in instalments ; and that for his assistance in the matter he 
would be restored to her favor, and ultimately admitted to 
court. All was to be secret for the present, however. A 
rascal named Villette was admitted to the fraudulent game, and 
his part was to forge notes from the queen to Rohan, and to 
act the part of the queen's valet. The cardinal was comjDletely 
deceived. He believed that he was fully in the favor of the 
queen. To confirm him in this belief the countess contrived a 
fictitious interview between Rohan and the queen, in the Horn- 
beam Arbor of the garden at Versailles. A Parisian street 
girl, Gay D'Oliva, who somewhat resembled Marie Antoinette 
in figure and profile, impersonated the queen — the darkness 
and a skilfully contrived interruption preventing the cardinal 
from discovering the deception. 

The result of all this was, that on the 29th of January, 1785, 
Boehmer and Rohan signed an agreement by which the latter 



THE AFFAIR OF THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 29 

was to purchase the necklace for the queen, and pay for it in 
five equal instalments, the first in six months. On Feb. 1, 
the necklace was delivered to Rohan, and the next evening, in 
Lamotte's apartments at Versailles, in the presence of the car- 
dinal, it was delivered to Villette, supposed by Rohan to be the 
queen's valet. The necklace now vanished forever. Lamotte, 
the husband, and Villette went abroad and sold the diamonds 
in London and in Amsterdam. 

Meantime the cardinal was growing anxious at not receiv- 
ing recognition for his services from the queen. The day of 
the first payment, July 30, came, and no instalment from the 
queen. Boehmer, importunate for his money, spoke to the 
king's minister, and the whole daring and successful plot was 
exposed. The cardinal was arrested Aug. 15, Assumption 
Day, as he was about to celebrate mass, and was imprisoned 
in the Bastille. Lamotte and Villette had escaped, but the 
* ' Countess " de Lamotte, Gay D'Oliva, Cagliostro and his wife, 
were arrested and imprisoned. The trial lasted nine months 
^and ended May 31, 1786. The cardinal was acquitted and 
completely exonerated. Madame Lamotte was found guilty, 
was branded with a V (voleuse, thief), and was to be confined 
in the Salpetriere. Lamotte, though out of reach of the sen- 
tence, was condemned to the galleys for life. Villette was 
banished from France. The rest were acquitted. 

The trial caused immense scandal. The powerful families 
of Rohan, Soubise, and Conde, and the people of France, gen- 
erally, sided with the cardinal and blamed the queen, 
falsely charging her with being a party to the plot. The 
miserable business still further undermined respect for the 
throne and increased the unpopularity of Marie Antoinette. 
The odium of the ' * Diamond Necklace " imbittered all her 
future life, and followed her to the very steps of the guil- 
lotine. 



30 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

Of the authorities on the Necklace matter quoted by Carlyle, 
the best and most easily accessible is an edition of the "Me- 
moirs of Marie Antoinette, by Madame Campan," edited by 
Lamartine, with appendices containing copious extracts from 
the "Memoirs " of Georgel. Accounts of the intrigue are given, 
in Tytler's "Marie Antoinette;" in the Encyclopedia Britan- 
nica, article ' ' Rohan ; " in Chambers's Encyclopedia, article 
" Diamond Necklace ; " in Guizot's "History of France." Car- 
lyle's "French Revolution" will throw light on parts of the 
" Diamond Necklace." 



SUMMARY OF CONTENTS 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 

Chap. I. The Age of Romance. 

The Age of Romance can never cease : All Life romantic, 
and even miraculous. — How few men have the smallest tm*n 
for thinking! " Dignity " and deadness of History: Stifling 
influence of Respectability. No age ever seemed romantic to 
itself. Perennial Romance : The lordliest Real-Phantasmago- 
ria, which men name Being. What fiction can be so wonder- 
ful, as the thing that is ? The Romance of the Diamond Neck- 
lace no foolish brainweb, but actually " spirit- woven " in the 
Loom of Time. 

Chap. IL The Necklace is made. 

Last infirmity of M. Boehmer's mind : The King's Jeweller 
would fain be maker of the Queen of Jewels. Difference 
between making and agglomerating: The various Histories 
of those several Diamonds : What few things are made by 
man. A Necklace, fit only for the Sultana of the World. 



Chap. HI. The Necklace cannot be sold. 

Miscalculating Boehmer ! The Necklace intended for the 
neck of Du Ban*y ; but her foul day is now over. Many 

31 



B2 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

praises, but no purchaser. Loveliest Marie-.\ntoinette, every 
inch a Queen. The Age of Chivalry gone, and that of Bank- 
ruptcy is come. 

Chap. TV. Affinities : the Two Fixed-ideas. 

A man's little Work lies not isolated, stranded; but is 
caught-ui3 by the boundless Whirl of Things, and carried — 
who shall say whither ? Prince Louis de Rohan ; a nameless 
Mass of delirious Incoherences, held-in a little by conventional 
Politesse. These are thy gods, O France! Sleek Abbe Geor- 
gel, a model Jesuit, and Prince de Rohan's nursing-mother. 
Embassy to Vienna: Disfavor of Maria Theresa and of the 
fair Antoinette. — Hideous death of King Louis the Well- 
beloved. Rohan returns from Vienna ; and the young Queen 
refuses to see him. Teetotum-terrors of life at Court. His 
Eminence's blank despair, and desperate struggle to clutch 
the favor he has lost. Give the wisest of us a " fixed-idea," 
and what can his wisdom help him ! — Will not her Majesty 
buy poor Boehmer's Necklace ? and oh, will she not smile 
once more on poor dissolute, distracted Rohan ? The beauti- 
ful clear-hearted Queen, alas, beset by two Monomaniacs; 
whose " fixed-ideas " may one day meet. 

Chap. V. The Artist. 

Jeanne de Saint-Remi, a brisk little nondescript Scion-of- 
Royalty: Her parentage and hungry prospects. Her singu- 
larly undecipherable character. Conscience not essential to 
every character named human. A Spark of vehement Life, 
not developed into Will of any kind, only into Desires of many 
kinds : Glibness, shiftiness and untamability. — Kittenness not 
yet hardened into cathood. Marries M. de Lamotte, and dubs 



SUMMARY OF CONTENTS. 33 

him Count. Hard shifts for a living. Visits his Eminence 
Prince Louis de Rohan ; his monomaniac folly now under 
Cagliostro's management. The glance of hungry genius. 

Chap. VI. Will the Two Fixed-ideas meet^ 

The poor Countess de Lamotte's watergruel rations ; and 
desperate tackings and manoeuvrings within wind of Court. 
Eminence Rohan arrives thitherward, driven by his fixed- 
idea. Idle gossiping and tattling concerning Boehmer and 
his Necklace. In some moment of inspiration, a question, 
rises on our brave Lamotte : If not a great Divine Idea, then 
a great Diabolic one. How Thought rules the world! — A 
female Dramatist worth thinking of. Could Madame de 
Lamotte have written a Hamletl- Poor Eminence Rohan in a 
Prospero's-grotto of Cagliostro magic ; led on by our sprightly 
Countess's soft-warbling deceitful blandishments. 

Chap. VII. Marie- Antoinette. 

The Countess plays upon the credulity of his Eminence: 
Strange messages for and from the innocent, unconscious 
Queen. Frankhearted Marie- Antoinette ; beautiful Highborn, 
so foully hurled low! The "Sanctuary of Sorrow" for all 
the wretched : That wild-yelling World, and all its madness, 
will one day lie dumb behind thee ! 

Chap. VIII. The Tivo Fixed-ideas will unite. 

Further dexterities of the glib-tongued Lamotte : How she 
managed with Cagliostro. Boehmer is made to hear (by acci- 
dent) of her new found favor with the Queen ; and believes 
it. Drowning men catch at straws, and hungry blacklegs stick 
at nothing. — Can her Majesty be persuaded to buy the Neck- 



34 - THOMAS CARLYLE. 

lace ? Will her Majesty deign to accept a present so worthy 
of her ? — Walk warily, Countess de Lamotte, with nerve of 
iron, but on shoes of felt ! 

Chap. IX. Park of Versailles. 

Ineffable expectancy stirs-up his Eminence's soul: "This 
night the Queen herself will meet thee ! " Sleep rules this 
Hemisphere of the World ; — rather curious to consider. 
Darkness and magical delusions : The Countess's successful 
dramaturgy. Ixion de Rohan, and the foul Centaurs he begat. 

Chap. X. Behind the Scenes. 

The Lamotte all-conquering talent for intrigue. The Demoi- 
selle d'Oliva ; unfortunate Queen's Similitude, and unconscious 
tool of skilful knavery. 

Chap. XI. The Necklace is sold. 

A pause : The two fixed-ideas have felt each other, and are 
rapidly coalescing. His Eminence will buy the Necklace, on 
her Majesty's account. O Dame de Lamotte! — "I? Who 
saw me in it ? " — Rohan and Boehmer in earnest business con- 
ference : A forged Royal approval : Secrecy as of Death. 

Chap. XII. The Necklace vanishes. 

The bargain concluded ; his Eminence the proud possessor 
of the Diamond Necklace. Again the scene changes ; and he 
has forwarded it — whither he little dreams. 

Chap. XIII. Scene Third : by Dame de Lamotte. 

Cagliostro, with his greasy prophetic bulldog face. Coun- 
tess de Lamotte and his Eminence in the Versailles Gallery. 



SUMMARY OF CONTENTS. 35 

Through that long Gallery, what figures have passed, and 
vanished ! The Queen now passes ; and graciously looks this 
way, according to her habit : Dame de Lamotte looks on, and 
dexterously pilfers the royal glances. Eminence de Rohan's 
helpless, bottomless, beatific folly. 

Chap. XIV. The Necklace cannot be paid. 

The Countess's Dramaturgic labors terminate. How 
strangely in life the Play goes on, even when the Mover has 
left it ! No Act of man can ever die. His Eminence finds 
himself no nearer his expected goal : Unspeakable perturba- 
tions of soul and body. — Blacklegs in full feather : Rascaldom 
has no strong-box. Dame de Lamotte gayly stands the brunt 
of the threatening Earthquake : The farthest in the world from 
a brave woman. — Gloomy weather-symptoms for his Emi- 
nence : A thunder-clap (per Countess de Lamotte) ; and mud- 
explosion beyond parallel. 

Chap. XV. Scene Fourth : by Destiny. 

Assumption-day at Versailles ; — a thing they call worship- 
ping God to enact : All Noble France, waiting only the signal 
to begin worshipping. Eminence de Rohan chief-actor in the 
imposing scene. Arrestment in the King's name : There will 
be no Assumption-service this day. The Bastille opens its 
iron bosom to all the actors in the Diamond-drama. 

Chap. XVI. Missa est. 

The extraordinary ♦* Necklace Trial," an astonishment and 
scandal to the whole world. Prophetic Discourse by Count 
Arch-Quack Cagliostro : — Universal Empire of Scoundrel ism : 



36 THOMAS CARLYLE, 

Trutli Wedded to Sham gives birth to Respectability. The old 
Christian whim, of some sacred covenant with an actual, liv- 
ing and ruling God. Scoundrel Worship and Philosophy: 
Deep significance of the Gallows. Hideous fate of Dame de 
Lamotte. Unfortunate foully-slandered Queen : Her eyes red 
with their first tears of pure bitterness. The Empire of Im- 
posture in flames. — This strange, many-tinted Business, like 
a little cloud from which wise men boded Earthquakes. 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE/ 

[1837.] 



CHAPTER I. 

AGE OF ROMANCE. 



The Age of Romance has not ceased ; it never ceases ; 
it does not, if we will think of it, so much as very sen- 
sibly decline. " The passions are repressed by social 
forms ; great passions no longer show themselves ? " 
Why, there are passions still great enough to replenish 5 
Bedlam, for it never wants tenants ; to suspend men 
from bed-posts, from improved-drops at the west end of 
Newgate. A passion that explosively shivers asunder 
the Life it took rise in, ought to be regarded as consid- 
erable : more no passion, in the highest heyday of Ro- 10 
mance, yet did. The passions, by grace of the Supernal 
and also of the Infernal Powers (for both have a hand 
in it), can never fail us. 

And then, as to " social forms," be it granted that they 
are of the most buckram quality, and bind men up into 15 
1 Eraser's Magazine, Nos. 85 and 86. 
37 



88 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

the pitifullest, straitlaced, commonplace existence, — you 
ask, Where is the Eomance ? In the Scotch way one 
answers, Where is it not ? That very spectacle of an 
Immortal Nature, with faculties and destiny extending 

5 through Eternity, hampered and bandaged up, by nurses, 
pedagogues, posture-masters, and the tongues of innu- 
merable old women (named " force of public opinion ") j 
by prejudice, custom, want of knowledge, want of 
money, want of strength, into, say, the meagre Pattern- 

10 Figure that, in these days, meets you in all thorough- 
fares : a " god-created Man," all but abnegating the 
character of Man ; forced to exist, automatized, mummy- 
wise (scarcely in rare moments audible or visible from 
amid his wrappages and cerements), as Gentleman or 

15 Grigman ; and so selling his birthright of Eternit}^ for 
the three daily meals, poor at best, which Time yields : 
— is not this spectacle itself highly romantic, tragical, if 
we had eyes to look at it ? The high-born (highest- 
born, for he came out of Heaven) lies drowning in the 

20 despicablest puddles ; the priceless gift of Life, which he 
can have but once, for he waited a whole Eternity to be 
born, and now has a whole Eternity waiting to see what 
he will do when born, — this priceless gift we see stran- 
gled slowly out of him by innumerable packthreads ; 

25 and there remains of the glorious Possibility, which we 
fondly named Man, nothing but an inanimate mass of 
foul loss and disappointment, which we wrap in shrouds 
and bury underground, — surely with well-merited tears. 
To the Thinker here lies Tragedy enough ; the epitome 
and marrow of all Tragedy whatsoever. 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 39 

But so few are Thinkers ? Ay, Eeader, so few think ; 
there is the rub! Not one in the thousand has the 
smallest turn for thinking ; only for passive dreaming 
and hearsaying, and active babbling by rote. Of the 
eyes that men do glare withal so few can see. Thus is 5 
the world become such a fearful confused Treadmill; 
and each man's task has got entangled in his neigh- 
bor's, and pulls it awry ; and the Spirit of Blindness, 
Falsehood and Distraction, justly named the Devil, con- 
tinually maintains himself among us; and even hopes 10 
(were it not for the Opposition, which by God's grace 
will also maintain itself) to become supreme. Thus too, 
among other things, has the Romance of Life gone 
wholly out of sight : and all History, degenerating into 
empty invoice-lists of Pitched Battles and Changes of 15 
Ministry ; or still worse, into " Constitutional History," 
or " Philosophy of History," or " Philosophy teaching by 
Experience," is become dead, as the Almanacs of other 
years, — to which species of composition, indeed, it 
bears, in several points of view, no inconsiderable 20 
affinity. 

" Of all blinds that shut-up men's vision," says one, 
" the worst is Self." How true ! How doubly true, if 
Self, assuming her cunningest, yet miserablest disguise, 
come on us, in never-ceasing, all-obscuring reflexes from 25 
the innumerable Selves of others ; not as Pride, not even 
as real Hunger, but only as Vanity, and the shadow of an 
imaginary Hunger for Applause ; under the name of what 
we call '' Respectability ! " Alas now for our Historian : 
to his other spiritual deadness (which however, so long 



40 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

as he physically breathes, cannot be considered complete) 
this sad new magic influence is added ! Henceforth his 
Histories must all be screwed up into the " dignity 
of History." Instead of looking fixedly at the Thing, 
5 and first of all, and beyond all, endeavoring to see it, 
and fashion a living Picture of it, not a wretched polit- 
ico-metaphysical Abstraction of it, he has now quite 
other matters to look to. The Thing lies shrouded, 
invisible, in thousandfold hallucinations, and foreign 

10 air-images : What did the Whigs say of it ? What did 
the Tories ? The Priests ? The Freethinkers ? Above 
all. What will my own listening circle say of me for 
what I say of it ? And then his Respectability in gen- 
eral, as a literary gentleman ; his not despicable talent 

15 for philosophy ! Thus is our poor Historian's faculty 
directed mainly on two objects : the Writing and 
the Writer, both of which are quite extraneous ; and the 
Thing written-of fares as we see. Can it be wonderful 
that Histories, wherein open lying is not permitted, 

20 are unromantic ? Nay, our very Biographies, how stiff 
starched, foisonless, hollow ! They stand there respec- 
table ; and — what more ? Dumb idols ; with a skin of 
delusively painted wax-work; inwardly empty, or full 
of rags and bran. In our England especially, which in 

25 these days is become the chosen land of Respectability, 
Life-writing has dwindled to the sorrowfullest condi- 
tion ; it requires a man to be some disrespectable, ridic- 
ulous Boswell before he can write a tolerable Life. Thus 
too, strangely enough, the only Lives worth reading are 
those of Players, emptiest and poorest of the sons of 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 41 

Adam ; who nevertheless were sons of his, and brothers 
of ours ; and by the nature of the case, had already bid- 
den Eespectability good-day. Such bounties, in this as 
in infinitely deeper matters, does Eespectability shower 
down on us. Sad are thy doings, Gig ; sadder than 5 
those of Juggernaut's Car: that, with huge wheel, sud- 
denly crushes asunder the bodies of men ; thou in thy 
light-bobbing Long-Acre springs, gradually winnowest 
away their souls ! 

Depend upon it, for one thing, good Keader, no age 16 
ever seemed the Age of Eomance to itself. Charle- 
magne, let the Poets talk as they will, had his own prov- 
ocations in the world : what with selling of his poultry 
and pot-herbs, what with wanton daughters carrying sec- 
retaries through the snow ; and, for instance, that hang- 15 
ing of the Saxons over the Weserbridge (four thousand 
of them they say, at one bout), it seems to me that the 
Great Charles had his temper ruffled at times. Eoland 
of Eoncesvalles too, we see well in thinking of it, found 
rainy weather as well as sunny ; knew what it was to 20 
have hose need darning ; got tough beef to chew, or even 
went dinnerless ; was saddle-sick, calumniated, consti- 
pated (as his madness too clearly indicates) ; and often- 
est felt, I doubt not, that this was a very Devil's world, 
and he, Eoland himself, one of the sorriest caitiffs there. 26 
Only in long subsequent days, when the tough beef, the 
constipation and the calumny had clean vanished, did it 
all begin to seem Eomantic, and your Turpins and Arios- 
tos found music in it. So, I say, is it ever / And the 
more, as your true hero, your true Eoland, is ever 



42 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

unconscious that he is a hero : this is a condition of all 
greatness. 

In our own poor Nineteenth Century, the Writer of 
these lines has been fortunate enough to see not a few 
5 glimpses of Romance ; he imagines his Nineteenth is 
hardly a whit less romantic than that Ninth, or any 
other since centuries began. Apart from Napoleon, and 
the Dantons, and the Mirabeaus, whose fire-words of 
public speaking, and fire-whirlwinds of cannon and mus- 

10 ketry, which for a season darkened the air, are perhaps 
at bottom but superficial phenomena, he has witnessed, 
in remotest places, much that could be called roman- 
tic, even miraculous. He has witnessed overhead the 
infinite Deep, with greater and lesser lights, bright-roll- 

15 ing, silent-beaming, hurled forth by the Hand of God : 
around him and under his feet, the wonderfullest Earth, 
with her winter snow-storms and her summer spice-airs; 
and, unaccountablest of all, /wmseZ/ standing there. He 
stood in the lapse of Time ; he saw Eternity behind him, 

20 and before him. The all-encircling mysterious tide of 
EoRCE, thousandfold (for from force of Thought to force 
of Gravitation what an interval !) billowed shoreless on ; 
bore him too along with it, — he too was part of it. 
From its bosom rose and vanished, in perpetual change, 

25 the lordliest Eeal-Phantasmagory, which men name 
Being ; and ever anew rose and vanished ; and ever 
that lordliest many-colored scene was full, another yet 
the same. Oak-trees fell, young acorns sprang: Men 
too, new-sent from the Unknown, he met, of tiniest 
size, who waxed into stature, into strength of sinew, 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 43 

passionate fire and light : in other men the light was 
growing dim, the sinews all feeble ; then sank, motion- 
less, into ashes, into invisibility ; returned hack to the 
Unknown, beckoning him their mute -'farewell. He 
wanders still by the parting-spot ; cannot hear them y 5 
they are far, how far ! — It was a sight for angels, and 
archangels ; for, indeed, God himself had made it wholly. 
One many-glancing asbestos-thread in the Web of Uni- 
versal-History, spirit-woven, it rustled there, as with the 
howl of mighty winds, through that " wild-roaring Loom 10 
of Time." Generation after generation, hundreds of 
them or thousands of them from the unknown Begin- 
ning, so loud, so storm ful-busy, rushed torrent-wise, 
thundering down, down ; and fell all silent, — nothing 
but some feeble re-echo, which grew ever feebler, strug- 15 
gling up ; and Oblivion swallowed them all. Thousands 
more, to the unknown Ending, will follow : and thou 
here, of this present one, hangest as a drop, still sungilt, 
on the giddy edge ; one moment, while the Darkness has 
not yet ingulfed thee. Brother ! is that what thou 20 
callest prosaic ; of small interest ? Of small interest 
and for thee ? Awake poor troubled sleeper : shake off 
thy torpid nightmare-dream ; look, see, behold it, the 
Flame-image; splendors high as Heaven, terrors deep 
as Hell: this is God's Creation; this is Man's Life! — 25 
Such things has the Writer of these lines witnessed, in 
this poor Nineteenth Century of ours ; and what are all 
such to the things he yet hopes to witness ? Hopes, 
with truest assurance. " I have painted so much," said 
the good Jean Paul, in his old days, " and I have never 



44 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

seen tlie Ocean ; the Ocean of Eternity I shall not fail 
to see ! " 

Such being the intrinsic quality of this Time, and of 
all Time whatsoever, might not the Poet who chanced 

5 to walk through it find objects enough to paint? What 
object soever he fixed on, were it the meanest of the 
mean, let him but paint it in its actual truth, as it swims 
there, in such environment ; world-old, yet new and 
never-ending; an indestructible portion of the miracu- 

10 lous All, — his picture of it were a Poem. How much 
more if the object fixed on were not mean, but one 
already wonderful ; the mystic " actual truth " of which, 
if it lay not on the surface, yet shone through the sur- 
face, and invited even Prosaists to search for it ! 

15 The present Writer, who unhappily belongs to that 
class, has nevertheless a firmer and firmer persuasion of 
two things : first, as was seen, that K-omance exists ; 
secondly, that now, and formerly, and evermore it exists, 
strictly speaking, in Peality alone. The thing that is, 

20 what can be so wonderful ; what, especially to us that 
are, can have such significance ? Study Keality, he is 
ever and anon saying to himself ; search out deeper and 
deeper its quite endless mystery : see it, know it ; then, 
whether thou wouldst learn from it, and again teach ; or 

25 weep over it, or laugh over it, or love it, or despise it, 
or in any way relate thyself to it, thou hast the firmest 
enduring basis : that hieroglyphic page is one thou canst 
read on forever, find new meaning in forever. 

Finally, and in a word, do not the critics teach us : 
" In whatsoever thing thou hast thyself felt interest, in 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 45 

that or in nothing hope to inspire others with interest " ? 
— In partial obedience to all which, and to many other 
principles, shall the following small Eomance of the 
Diamond Necklace begin to come together. A small 
Romance, let the reader again and again assure himself, 5 
which is no brainweb of mine, or of any other foolish 
man's ; but a fraction of that mystic " spirit-woven web," 
from the "Loom of Time," spoken of above. It is an 
actual Transaction that happened in this Earth of ours. 
Wherewith our whole business, as already urged, is to lO 
paint it truly. 

For the rest, an earnest inspection, faithful endeavor 
has not been wanting, on our part ; nor, singular as it 
may seem, the strictest regard to chronology, geography 
(or rather in this case, topography), documentary evi- 15 
dence, and what else true historical research would yield. 
Were there but on the reader's part a kindred openness, 
a kindred spirit of endeavor ! Beshone strongly, on 
both sides, by such united two-fold Philosophy, this 
poor opaque Intrigue of the Diamond Necklace might 20 
become quite translucent between us ; transfigured, lifted 
up into the serene of Universal-History ; and might hang 
there like a smallest Diamond Constellation, visible with- 
out telescope, — so long as it could. 



46 THOMAS CARLYLE. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE NECKLACE IS MADE. 

Herr, or as he is now called Monsieur, Boehmer, to 
all appearance wanted not that last infirmity of noble 
and ignoble minds — a love of fame; he Avas destined 
also to be famous more than enough. His outlooks 
5 into the world were rather of a smiling character : he 
has long since exchanged his guttural speech, as far as 
possible, for a nasal one ; his rustic Saxon fatherland 
for a polished city of Paris, and thriven there. United 
in partnership with worthy Monsieur Bassange, a sound 

10 practical man, skilled in the valuation of all precious 
stones, in the management of workmen, in the judgment 
of their work, he already sees himself among the high- 
est of his guild : nay, rather the very highest, — for he 
has secured, by purchase and hard money paid, the title 

15 of King's Jeweller ; and can enter the Court itself, leav- 
ing all other Jewellers, and even innumerable Gentle- 
men, Gigmen and small Nobility, to languish in the 
vestibule. With the costliest ornaments in his pocket, 
or borne after him by assiduous shopboys, the happy 

20 Boehmer sees high drawing rooms and sacred ruelles fly 
open, as with talismanic Sesame; and the brightest 
eyes of the whole world grow brighter : to him a^ouQ of 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 47 

men the Unapproachable reveals herself in mysterious 
negligee; taking and giving counsel. Do not, on all 
gala-days and gala-nights, his works praise him ? On 
the gorgeous robes of State, on Court-dresses and Lords' 
stars, on the diadem of Eoyalty : better still, on the 5 
swan-neck of Beauty, and her queenly garniture from 
plume-bearing aigrette to shoe-buckle on fairy -slipper, — 
that blinding play of colors is Boehmer's doing : he is 
Joaillie^'-Bijoutier de la Heine. 

Could the man but have been content with it ! He lo 
could not : Icarus-like, he must mount too high ; have 
his wax-wings melted, and descend prostrate, — amid a 
cloud of vain goose-quills. One day, a fatal day (of some 
year, probably among the Seventies of last Century), 
it struck Boehmer : Why should not I, who as Most 15 
Christian King's Jeweller, am properly first Jeweller of 
the Universe, — make a Jewel which the Universe has 
not matched ? Nothing can prevent thee, Boehmer, if 
thou have the skill to do it. Skill or no skill, answers 
he, I have the ambition : my Jewel, if not the beautiful- 20 
lest, shall be the dearest. Thus was the Diamond Neck- 
lace determined on. 

Did worthy Bassange give a willing, or a reluctant 
consent ? In any case he consents ; and co-operates. 
Plans are sketched, consultations held, stucco models 25 
made ; by money or credit the costliest diamonds come 
in ; cunning craftsmen cut them, set them : proud Boeh- 
mer sees the work go prosperously on. Proud man ! 
Behold him on a morning after breakfast : he has 
stepped down to the innermost workshop, before sally- 



48 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

ing out ; stands there with his laced three-cornered hat, 
cane under arm ; drawing-on his gloves : with nod, with 
nasal-guttural word, he gives judicious conhrmation, 
judicious abnegation, censure and approval. A still 

5 joy is dawning over that bland, blond face of his ; he 
can think, while in many a sacred boudoir he visits 
the Unapproachable, that an opus magnum, of which the 
world wotteth not, is progressing. At length comes a 
morning when care has terminated, and joy can not only 

10 dawn but shine ; the Necklace, which shall be famous 
and world-famous, is made. 

• Made we call it, in conformity with common speech, 
but properly it was not made ; only, with more or 
less spirit of method, arranged and agglomerated. 

15 What spirit of method lay in it, might be made ; noth- 
ing more. But to tell the various Histories of those va- 
rious Diamonds, from the first making of them ; or even, 
omitting all the rest, from the first digging of them in 
the far Indian mines ! How they lay, for uncounted 

20 ages and aeons (under the uproar and splashing of such 
Deucalion Deluges, and Hutton Explosions, with steam 
enough, and Werner Submersions), silently imbedded 
in the rock ; did nevertheless, when their hour came, 
emerge from it, and first beheld the glorious Sun smile 

25 on them, and with their many-colored glances smile back 
on him. How they served next, let us say, as eyes of 
Heathen Idols, and received worship. How they had 
then, by fortune of war or theft, been knocked out ; and 
exchanged among camp-sutlers for a little spirituous 
liquor, and bought by Jews, and worn as signets on the 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 49 

fingers of tawny or white Majesties ; and again been 
lost, with the fingers too, and perhaps life (as by Charles 
the Rash, among the inud-ditches of Nancy), in old-for- 
gotten glorious victories : and so, through innumerable 
varieties of fortune, — had come at last to the cutting- 5 
wheel of Boehmer ; to be united, in strange fellowship, 
with comrades also blown together from all ends of the 
Earth, each with a history of its own ! Could these 
aged stones, the youngest of them Six Thousand years 
of age and upwards, but have spoken, there were an 10 
Experience for Philosophy to teach by ! — But now, as 
was said, by little caps of gold, and daintiest rings of 
the same, the}^ are all being, so to speak, enlisted under 
Boehmer's flag, — made to take rank and file, in new 
order, no Jewel asking his neighbor whence he came ; 15 
and parade there for a season. For a season only ; and 
then — to disperse, and enlist anew o.d infinitum. In 
such inexplicable wise are Jewels, and Men also, and 
indeed all earthly things, jumbled together and asunder, 
and shovelled and wafted to and fro, in our inexplicable 20 
chaos of a World. This was what Boehmer called mak- 
ing his Necklace. 

So, in fact, do other men speak, and with even less 
reason. How many men, for example, hast thou heard 
talk of making money ; of making, say, a million and a 25 
half of money : Of which million and a half, how much 
if one were to look into it, had they made ? The accu- 
rate value of their Industry ; not a sixpence more. 
Their making, then, was but, like Boehmer's, a clutching 
and heaping together; — by-and-by to be followed also 



50 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

by a dispersion. Made ? Thou too vain individual ! 
were these towered ashlar edifices ; were these fair 
bounteous leas, with their bosky umbrages and yellow 
harvests ; and the sunshine that lights them from above, 
5 and the granite rocks and fire-reservoirs that support 
them from below, made by thee ? I think, by another. 
The very shilling that thou hast was dug, by man's 
force, in Carinthia and Paraguay ; smelted sufficiently ; 
and stamped, as would seem, not without the advice of 

10 our late Defender of the Faith, his Majesty George the 
Fourth. Thou hast it, and boldest it ; but whether, or 
in what sense, thou hast made any farthing of it, thy- 
self canst not say. If the courteous reader ask. What 
things, then, are made by man ? I will answer him, 

15 Very few indeed. A Heroism, a Wisdom (a god-given 
Volition that has realized itself), is made now and then : 
for example, some five or six Books, since the Creation, 
have been made. Strange that there are not more : for 
surely every encouragement is held out. Could I, or 

20 thou, happy reader, but make one, the world would let 
us keep it unstolen for Fourteen whole years, — and 
take what we could get for it. 

But, in a word. Monsieur Boehmer has made his Neck- 
lace, what he calls made it : happy man is he. From a 

25 Drawing, as large as reality, kindly furnished by " Tau- 
nay, Printseller, of the Eue d'Enfer ; " and again, in late 
years, by the Abbe Georgel, in the Second Volume of 
his Memoires curious readers can still fancy to them- 
selves what a princely Ornament it was. A row of 
seventeen glorious diamonds, as large almost as filberts, 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 51 

encircle, not too tightly, the neck, a first time. Looser, 
gracefully fastened thrice to these, a three-wreathed 
festoon, and pendants enough (simple pear-shaped, mul- 
tiple star-shaped, or clustering amorphous) encircle it, 
en wreath it, a second time. Loosest of all, softly flow- 5 
ing round from behind in priceless catenary, rush down 
two broad threefold rows ; seem to knot themselves, 
round a very Queen of Diamonds, on the bosom ; then 
rush on, again separated, as if there were length in 
plenty ; the very tassels of them were a fortune for 10 
some men. And now lastly, two other inexpressible 
threefold rows, also with their tassels, will, when the 
Necklace is on and clasped, unite themselves behind into 
a doubly inexpressible sixioldi row ; and so stream down, 
together or asunder, over the hind-neck, — we may fancy, 15 
like lambent Zodiacal or Aurora-Borealis fire. 

All these on a neck of snow slight-tinged with rose- 
bloom, and within it royal Life : amidst the blaze of 
lustres ; in sylphish movements, espiegleries, coquet- 
teries, and minuet-mazes ; with every movement a 20 
flash of star-rainbow colors, bright almost as the move- 
ments of the fair young soul it emblems ! A glorious 
ornament ; fit only for the Sultana of the World. In- 
deed, only attainable by such ; for it is valued at 
1,800,000 livres ; say in round numbers, and sterling 25 
money, between eighty and ninety thousand pounds. 



52 THOMAS CARLYLE. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE NECKLACE CANNOT BE SOLD. 

Miscalculating Boelimer ! The Sultana of the Earth 
shall never wear that Necklace of thine ; no neck, either 
royal or vassal, shall ever be the lovelier for it. In the 
present distressed state of our finances, with the Ameri- 

5 can War raging round us, where thinkest thou are eighty- 
thousand pounds to be raised for such a thing ? In this 
hungry world, thou fool, these five hundred and odd 
Diamonds, good only for looking at, are intrinsically 
worth less to us than a string of as many dry Irish 

10 potatoes, on which a famishing Sansculotte might fill his 
belly. Little knowest thou, laughing Joaillier-Bijoutier, 
great in thy pride of place, in thy pride of savoir-faire, 
what the world has in store for thee. Thou laughest 
there ; by-and-by thou wilt laugh on the wrong side of 

15 thy face mainly. 

While the Necklace lay in stucco effigy, and the stones 
of it were still " circulating in Commerce," Du Barry's 
was the neck it was meant for. Unhappily, as all dogs 
male and female, have but their day, her day is done ; 

20 and now (so busy has Death been) she sits retired, on 
mere half pay, without prospects, at Saint-Cyr. A gen- 
erous France will buy no more neck-ornaments for 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 53 

Jier:^ — Heaven ! the Guillotine-axe is already forging 
(North, in Swedish Dalecarlia, by sledge-hammers and 
fire ; South too, by taxes and tallies) that will shear her 
ne6k in twain ! 

But, indeed, what of Du Barry ? A foul worm ; 6 
hatched by royal heat, on foul composts, into a flaunt- 
ing butterfly ; now dis winged, and again a worm ! Are 
there not Kings' Daughters and Kings' Consorts ; is not 
Decoration the first wish of a female heart, — often also, 
if such heart is empty, the last ? The Portuguese Am- 10 
bassador is here, and his rigorous Pombal is no longer 
Minister : there is an Infanta in Portugal, purposing by 
Heaven's blessing to wed. — Singular ! the Portuguese 
Ambassador, though without fear of Pombal, praises, 
but will not purchase. 15 

Or why not our own loveliest Marie-Antoinette, once 
Dauphiness only ; now every inch a Queen : what neck 
in the whole Earth would it beseem better ? It is fit 
only for her. —Alas, Boehmer ! King Louis has an eye 
for diamonds ; but he too is without overplus of money : 20 
his high Queen herself answers queenlike, ^' We have 
more need of Seventy-fours than of Necklaces." Lau- 
datur et alget ! — Not without a qualmish feeling, we 
apply next to the Queen and King of the Two Sicilies. 
In vain, Boehmer ! In crowned heads there is no hope 25 
for thee. Not a crowned head of them can spare the 
eighty thousand pounds. The age of Chivalry is gone, 
and that of Bankruptcy is come. A dull, deep, presa- 
ging movement rocks all thrones : Bankruptcy is beating 
down the gate, and no Chancellor can longer barricade 



54 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

her out. She will enter ; and the shoreless fire-lava of 
Democracy is at her back ! Well may Kings, a second 
time, " sit still with awful eye," and think of far other 
things than Necklaces. 

5 Thus for poor Boehmer are the mournfullest days and 
nights appointed ; and this high-promising year (1780, as 
we laboriously guess and gather) stands blacker than all 
others in his calendar. In vain shall he, on his sleepless 
pillow, more and more desperately revolve the problem ; 

10 it is a problem of the insoluble sort, a true ^' irreducible 
case of Cardan : '^ the Diamond Necklace will not sell. 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 65 



CHAPTER IV. 

AFFINITES : THE TWO FIXED-IDEAS. 

Nevertheless, a man's little Work lies not isolated, 
stranded ; a whole busy World, a whole native-element 
of mysterious never-resting Force, environs it ; will catch 
it up; will carry it forward, or else backward: always, 
infallibly, either as living growth, or at worst as well- 5 
rotted manure, the Thing Done will come to use. Often, 
accordingly, for a man that had finished any little work, 
this were the most interesting question : In such a 
boundless whirl of a world, what hook will it be, and 
what hooks, that shall catch up this little work of mine ; 10 
and whirl it also, — through such a dance ? A question, 
we need not say, which, in the simplest of cases, would 
bring the whole Royal Society to a nonplus. — Good 
Corsican Letitia ! while thou nursest thy little Napoleon, 
and he answers thy mother-smile with those deep eyes 15 
of his, a world-famous French Revolution, with Federa- 
tions of the Champ de Mars, and September Massacres, 
and Bakers' Customers en queue, is getting ready : many 
a Danton and Desmoulins ; prim-visaged, Tartuffe-look- 
ing Robespierre, as yet all schoolboys ; and Marat 20 
weeping bitter rheum, as he pounds horsedrugs, — are 
preparing the fittest arena for him ! 



66 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

Thus too, while poor Boehmer is busy with those Dia- 
monds of his, picking them '^ out of Commerce," and his 
craftsmen are grinding and setting them ; a certain 
ecclesiastical Coadjutor and Grand Almoner, and pros- 

5 pective Commendator and Cardinal, is in Austria, hunt- 
ing and giving suppers ; for whom mainly it is that 
Boehmer and his craftsmen so employ themselves. 
Strange enough, once more ! The foolish Jeweller at 
Paris, making foolish trinkets ; the foolish Ambassador 

10 at Vienna, making blunders and debaucheries : these 
Two, all uncommunicating, wide asunder as the Poles, 
are hourly forging for each other the wonderfuUest 
hook-and-eye ; which will hook them together, one day, 
— into artificial Siamese-Twins, for the astonishment of 

15 mankind. 

Prince Louis de Rohan is one of those select mortals 
born to honors, as the sparks fly upwards ; and, alas, 
also (as all men are) to troubles no less. Of his genesis 
and descent much might be said, by the curious in such 

20 matters ; yet perhaps, if we weigh it well, intrinsically 
little. He can, by diligence and faith, be traced back 
some handbreadth or two, some century or two ; but after 
that, merges in the mere "blood-royal of Brittany;" 
long, long on this side of the Northern Immigrations, he 

25 is not so much as to be sought for ; — and leaves the 
whole space onwards from that, into the bosom of Eter- 
nity, a blank, marked only by one point, the Fall of 
Man ! However, and what alone concerns us, his kin- 
dred, in these quite recent times, have been much about 
the Most Christian Majesty ; could there pick up what 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 67 

was going. In particular, they have had a turn of some 
continuance for Cardinalship and Commendatorship. 
Safest trades these, of the calm, do-nothing sort : in the 
do-something line, in Generalship, or such like (witness 
poor Cousin Soubise, at E-osbach), they might not fare 5 
so well. In any case, the actual Prince Louis, Coadjutor 
at Strasburg, while his uncle the Cardinal-Archbishop 
has not yet deceased, and left him his dignities, but only 
fallen sick, already takes his place on one grandest 
occasion : he, thrice-happy Coadjutor, receives the fair, 10 
young, trembling Dauphiness, Marie-Antoinette, on her 
first entrance into France ; and can there, as Ceremonial 
Fugleman, with fit bearing and semblance (being a tall 
man, of six-and-thirty), do the needful. Of his other 
performances up to this date, a refined History had rather 15 
say nothing. 

In fact, if the tolerating mind will meditate it with any 
sympathy, what could poor Eohan perform ? Perform- 
ing needs light, needs strength, and a firm clear footing ; 
all of which had been denied him. ]S"ourished, from 20 
birth, with the choicest physical spoon-meat, indeed ; 
yet also, with no better spiritual Doctrine and Evangel 
of Life than a French Court of Louis the Well-beloved 
could yield ; gifted moreover, and this too was but a new 
perplexity for him, with shrewdness enough to see 26 
through much, with vigor enough to despise much; 
unhappily, not with vigor enough to spurn it from him, 
and be forever enfranchised of it, — he awakes, at man's 
stature, with man's wild desires, in a World of the merest 
incoherent Lies and Delirium ; himself a nameless Mass 



58 THOMAS CARLYLE, 

of delirious Incoherences, — covered over at most, and 
held in a little, by conventional Politesse, and a Cloak 
of prospective Cardinal's Plush. Are not intrigues, 
might Rohan say, the industry of this our Universe ; nay, 
5 is not the Universe itself, at bottom, properly an in- 
trigue? A Most Christian Majesty, in the Paro-aux- 
cerfs ; he, thou seest, is the god of this lower world ; in the 
fight of Life, our war-banner and celestial En-touto-nika 
is a Strumpet's Petticoat : these are thy gods, Prance ! 

10 — What, in such singular circumstances, could poor 
Eohan's creed and world-theory be, that he should " per- 
form " thereby ? Atheism ? Alas, no ; not even Athe- 
ism : only Machiavellism ; and the indestructible faith 
that "ginger is hot in the mouth." Get ever new and 

15 better ginger, therefore ; chew it ever the more dili- 
gently : 'tis all thou hast to look to, and that only for a 
day. 

Ginger enough, poor Louis de Rohan : too much of 
ginger ! Whatsoever of it, for the five senses, money, 

20 or money's worth, or backstairs diplomacy, can buy ; 
nay for the sixth sense too, the far spicier ginger. Ante- 
cedence of thy fellow-creatures, — merited, at least, by 
infinitely finer housing than theirs. Coadjutor of Stras- 
burg, Archbishop of Strasburg, Grand Almoner of 

25 France, Commander of the Order of the Holy Ghost, 
Cardinal Commendator of St. Wast d' Arras (one of the 
fattest benefices here below) : all these shall be housings 
for Monseigneur : to all these shall his Jesuit Nursing- 
mother, our vulpine Abb^ Georgel, through fair court- 
weather and through foul, triumphantly bear him ; and 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 59 

wrap him with them, fat, somnolent Nursling as he is. 

— By the way, a most assiduous, ever-wakeful Abbe is 
this Georgel ; and wholly Monseigneur's. He has scouts 
dim-flying, far out, in the great deep of the world's busi- 
ness ; has spider-threads that overnet the whole world ; 5 
himself sits in the centre, ready to run. In vain shall 
King and Queen combine against Monseigneur : '- 1 was 
at M. de Maurepas' pillow before six," — persuasively 
wagging my sleek coif, and the sleek reynard-head under 

it ; I managed it all for him. Here too, on occasion of 10 
Reynard Georgel, we could not but reflect what a sin- 
gular species of creature your Jesuit must have been. 
Outwardly, you would say, a man ; the smooth semblance 
of a man : inwardly, to the centre, filled with stone ! 
Yet in all breathing things, even in stone Jesuits, are 15 
inscrutable sympathies : how else does a Eeynard Abbe 
so loyally give himself, soul and body, to a somnolent 
Monseigneur ; — how else does the poor Tit, to the 
neglect of its own eggs and interests, nurse up a huge 
lumbering Cuckoo ; and think its pains all paid, if the 20 
sootbrown Stupidity will merely grow bigger and bigger ! 

— Enough, by Jesuitic or other means. Prince Louis de 
Eohan shall be passively kneaded and baked into Com- 
mendator of St. Wast and much else ; and truly such a 
Commendator as hardly, since King Thierri, first of the 25 
Faineans, founded that Establishment, has played his 
part there. 

Such, however, have Nature and Art combined to- 
gether to make Prince Louis. A figure thrice-clothed 
with honors ; with plush, and civic and ecclesiastic gar- 



60 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

niture of all kinds ; but in itself little other tlian an 
amorphous congeries of contradictions, somnolence and 
violence, foul passions and foul habits. It is by his 
plush cloaks and wrappages mainly, as above hinted, that 
5 such a figure sticks together : what we call " coheres," 
in any measure ; were it not for these, he would flow out 
boundlessly on all sides. Conceive him farther, with 
a kind of radical vigor and fire, for he can see clearly 
at times, and speak fiercely ; yet left in this way to 

10 stagnate and ferment, and lie overlaid with such floods 
of fat material : have we not a true image of the shame- 
fullest Mud-volcano, gurgling and sluttishly simmering, 
amid continual steamy indistinctness, — except as was 
hinted, in wmdi-gusts ; with occasional terrifico-absurd 

15 mud-explosions ! 

This, garnish it and fringe it never so handsomely, is, 
alas, the intrinsic character of Prince Louis. A shame- 
ful spectacle : such, however, as the world has beheld 
many times ; as it were to be washed, but is not yet to 

20 be hoped, the world might behold no more. Nay, are not 
all possible delirious incoherences, outward and inward, 
summed up, for poor Eohan, in this one incrediblest 
incoherence, that he, Prince Louis de Eohan, is named 
Priest, Cardinal of the Church ? A debauched, merely 

25 libidinous mortal, lying there quite helpless, c^^ssolute 
(as we well say) ; whom to see Church Cardinal, sym- 
bolical Hinge or main Corner of the Invisible Holy in 
this World, an Inhabitant of Saturn might split with 
laughing, — if he did not rather swoon with pity and 
horror ! 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 61 

Prince Louis, as ceremonial fugleman at Strasburg, 
might have hoped to make some way with the fair young 
Dauphiness ; but seems not to have made any. Perhaps, 
in those great days, so trying for a fifteen-years Bride 
and Dauphiness, the fair Antoinette was too preoccu- 5 
pied : perhaps, in the very face and looks of Prospective- 
Cardinal Prince Louis, her fair young soul read, all 
unconsciously, an incoherent Boue-i^m., bottomless Mud- 
volcanoism ; from which she by instinct rather recoiled. 

However, as above hinted, he is now gone, in these 10 
years, on Embassy to Vienna : with " four-and-twenty 
pages '' (if our remembrance of Abbe Georgel serve) " of 
noble birth,'^ all in scarlet breeches ; and such a retinue 
and parade as drowns even his fat revenue in perennial 
debt. Above all things, his Jesuit Familiar is with him. 16 
For so everywhere they must manage : Eminence Eohan 
is the cloak, Jesuit Georgel the man or automaton within 
it. Eohan, indeed, sees Poland a-partitioning ; or rather 
Georgel, with his " masked Austrian '^ traitor " on the 
ramparts," sees it for him : but what can he do ? He 20 
exhibits his four-and-twenty scarlet pages, — who, we 
find, " smuggle " to quite unconscionable lengths ; rides 
through a Catholic procession, Prospective-Cardinal 
though he be, because it is too long and keeps him from 
an appointment ; hunts, gallants ; gives suppers, Sarda- 25 
napalus-wise, the finest ever seen in Vienna. Abbe 
Georgel, as we fancy it was, writes a Despatch in his 
name " every fortnight ; " — mentions in one of these, 
that " Maria Theresa stands, indeed, with the handker- 



62 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

chief in one hand; weeping for the woes of Poland ; but 
with the sword in the other hand, ready to cut Poland 
in sections, and take her share." Untimely joke ; which 
proved to Prince Louis the root of unspeakable cha- 

5 grins ! For Minister D'Aiguillon (much against his 
duty) communicates the Letter to King Louis ; Louis to 
Du Barry, to season her soujper, and laughs over it : the 
thing becomes a court joke ; the filially-pious Dauphiness 
hears it, and remembers it. Accounts go, moreover, that 

10 Eohan spake censuringly of the Dauphiness to her 
Mother : this probably is but hearsay and false ; the 
devout Maria Theresa disliked him, and even despised 
him, and vigorously labored for his recalL 

Thus, in rosy sleep and somnambulism, or awake only 

15 to quaff the full wine cup of the Scarlet Woman his 
Mother, and again sleep and somnambulate, does the 
Prospective-Cardinal and Commendator pass his days. 
Unhappy man ! This is not a world which was made in 
sleep ; which it is safe to sleep and somnambulate in. 

20 Li that " loud-roaring Loom of Time " (where above nine 
hundred millions of hungry Men, for one item, restlessly 
weave and work), so many threads fly humming from 
their ^' eternal spindles ; " and swift invisible shuttles, far 
darting, to the Ends of the World, — complex enough ! 

25 At this hour, a miserable Boehmer in Paris, whom thou 
wottest not of, is spinning, of diamonds and gold, a pal- 
try thrum that will go nigh to strangle the life out of thee. 

Meanwhile Louis the Well-beloved has left, forever, 
his Farc-aux-cerfs ; and, amid the scarce-suppressed 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 68 

hootings of the world, taken up his last lodging at St. 
Denis. Feeling that it was all over (for the small-pox 
has the victory, and even Du Barry is off), he, as the 
Abbe Georgel records, "made the amende honorable to 
God " (these are his Reverence's own words) ; had a true 5 
repentance of three days' standing ; and so, continues 
the Abbe, " fell asleep in the Lord." Asleep in the 
Lord, Monsieur I'Abbe ! If such a mass of Laziness and 
Lust fell asleep in the Lord, who^ fanciest thou, is it 
that falls asleep — elsewhere ? Enough that he did fall 10 
asleep ; that thick- wrapt in the Blanket of the Night, 
under what keeping we ask not, he never through end- 
less Time can, for his own or our sins, insult the face of 
the Sun any more ; — and so now we go onward, if not 
to less degrees of beastliness, yet at least and worst, to 15 
cheering varieties of it. 

Louis XVI. therefore reigns (and, under the Sieur Ga- 
main, makes locks) ; his fair Dauphiness has become a 
Queen. Eminence Bohan is home from Vienna ; to con- 
dole and congratulate. He bears a letter from Maria 20 
Theresa ; hopes the Queen will not forget old Ceremonial 
Fuglemen, and friends of the Dauphiness. Heaven and 
Earth ! The Dauphiness Queen will not see him ; orders 
the Letter to be sent her. The King himself signifies 
briefly that he " will be asked for when wanted ! " 2;5 

Alas ! at Court, our motion is the delicatest, unsurest. 
We go spinning, as it were, on teetotums, by the edges 
of bottomless deeps. Best is fall ; so is one false whirl. 
A moment ago. Eminence Bohan seemed waltzing with 
the best : but, behold, his teetotum has carried him over; 



64 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

there is an inversion of the centre of gravity ; and so 
now, heels uppermost, velocity increasing as the time, 
space as the square of the time, — he rushes. 

On a man of poor Rohan's somnolence and violence, 
5 the sympathizing mind can estimate what the effect was. 
Consternation, stupefaction, the total jumble of blood, 
brains and nervous spirits; in ear and heart, only uni- 
versal hubbub and louder and louder singing of the agi- 
tated air. A fall comparable to that of Satan ! Men 

10 have, indeed, been driven from Court ; and borne it, 
according to ability. Choiseul, in these very years, 
retired Parthianlike, with a smile or scowl ; and drew 
half the Court-host along with him. Our Wolsey, 
though once an Ego et Rex meus, could journey, it is 

15 said, without strait-waistcoat, to his monastery ; and 
there telling beads, look forward to a still longer jour- 
ney. The melodious, too soft-strung Racine, when his 
King turned his back on him, emitted one meek wail, 
and submissively — died. But the case of Coadjutor de 

20 Rohan differed from all these. No loyalty was in him, 
that he should die ; no self-help, that he should live ; 
no faith, that he should tell beads. His is a mud- vol- 
canic character ; incoherent, mad, from the very founda- 
tion of it. Think too, that his Courtiership (for how 

25 could any nobleness enter there ?) was properly a gam- 
bling speculation : the loss of his trump Queen of Hearts 
can bring nothing but flat unredeemed despair. No 
other game has he, in this world, — or in the next. And 
then the exasperating Why? The Ho^v came it? For 
that Rohanic, or Georgelic, sprightliness of the "hand- 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 65 

kerchief in one hand, and sword in the other," if indeed 
that could have caused it all, has quite escaped him. 
In the name of Friar Bacon's Head, ivhat was it ? 
Imagination, with Desperation to drive her, may fly 
to all points of Space ; — and returns with wearied 5 
wings, and no tidings. Behold me here : this, which is 
the first grand certainty for man in general, is the first 
and last and only one for poor Rohan. And then his 
Here ! Alas, looking upwards, he can eye, from his 
burning marl, the azure realms, once his ; and Cousin 10 
Countess de Marsan, and so many Richelieus, Polignacs, 
and other happy angels, male and female, all blissfully 
gyrating there ; while he — ! 

Nevertheless hope, in the human breast, though not 
in the diabolic, springs eternal. The outcast Rohan 15 
bends all his thoughts, faculties, prayers, purposes, to 
one object ; one object he will attain, or go to Bedlam. 
How many ways he tries ; what days and nights of con- 
jecture, consultation ; what written unpublished reams 
of correspondence, protestation, backstairs diplomacy of 20 
every rubric ! How many suppers has he eaten ; how 
many given, — in vain ! It is his morning song, and 
his evening prayer. From innumerable falls he rises ; 
only to fall again. Behold him even, with his red 
stockings, at dusk, in the Garden of Trianon : he has 25 
bribed the Concierge ; will see her Majesty in spite of 
Etiquette and Fate ; peradventure, pitying his long sad 
King's-evil, she will touch him and heal him. In vain, — 
says the Female Historian, Campan. The Chariot of 
Majesty shoots rapidly by, with high-plumed heads in 



66 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

it ; Eminence is known by liis red stockings, but not 
looked at, only laughed at, and left standing like a Pil- 
lar of Salt. 

Thus through ten long years, of new resolve and new 

5 despondency, of flying from Saverne to Paris, and from 
Paris to Saverne, has it lasted ; hope deferred making 
the heart sick. Keynard Georgel and Cousin de Marsan, 
by eloquence, by influence, and being " at M. de Maure- 
pas' pillow before six,'^ have secured the Archbishropric, 

10 the Grand Almonership ; the Cardinalship (by the 
medium of Poland) ; and, lastly, to tinker many rents, 
and appease the Jews, that fattest Commendatorship, 
founded by King Thierri the Do-nothing — perhaps 
with a view to such cases. All good ! languidly croaks 

15 Rohan ; yet all not the one thing needful ; alas, the 
Queen's eyes do not yet shine on me. 

Abbe Georgel admits, in his own polite diplomatic 
way, that the Mud-volcano was much agitated by these 
trials ; and in time quite changed. Monseigneur devi- 

20 ated into cabalistic courses, after elixirs, philtres, and 
the philosopher's stone ; that is, the volcanic steam 
grew thicker and heavier : at last by Cagliostro's magic 
(for Cagliostro and the Cardinal by elective atiinity 
must meet), it sank into the opacity of perfect London 

25 fog ! So too, if Monseigneur grew choleric, wrapped 
himself up in reserve, spoke roughly to his domestics 
and dependents, — were not the terrifico-absurd mud- 
explosions becoming more frequent ? Alas, what won- 
der ? Some nine-and-forty winters have now fled over 
his Eminence (for it is 1783), and his beard falls white 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 67 

to the shaver; but age for him brings no "benefit of 
experience." He is possessed by a fixed-idea ! 

Foolish Eminence ! is the Earth grown all barren and 
of a snuff color, because one pair of eyes in it look on 
thee askance ? Surely thou hast thy Body there yet : 5 
and what of soul might from the first reside in it. Nay, 
a warm, snug Body, with not only five senses (sound 
still, in spite of much tear and wear), but most eminent 
clothing, besides ; — clothed with authority over much, 
with red Cardinal's cloak, red Cardinals hat ; with lO 
Commendatorship, Grand-Almonership, so kind have 
thy Fripiers been ; with dignities and dominions too 
tedious to name. The stars rise nightly, with tidings 
(for thee too, if thou wilt listen) from the infinite Blue ; 
Sun and Moon bring vicissitudes of season ; dressing 15 
green, with flower-borderings, and cloth of gold, this 
ancient ever-young Earth of ours, and filling her breasts 
with all-nourishing mother's milk. Wilt thou work ? 
The whole Encyclopaedia (not Diderot's only, but the 
Almighty's) is there for thee to spread thy broad faculty 20 
upon. Or, if thou have no faculty, no Sense, hast thou 
not, as already suggested, Senses, to the number of five ? 
What victuals thou wishest, command ; with what wine 
savoreth thee, be filled. Already thou art a false lasciv- 
ious Priest ; with revenues of, say, a quarter of a 25 
million sterling ; and no mind to mend. Eat, foolish 
Eminence ; eat with voracity, — leaving the shot till 
afterwards ! In all this the eyes of Marie Antoinette 
can neither help thee nor hinder. 

And yet what is the Cardinal, dissolute mud-volcano 



68 THOMAS CARLYLE. 



though he be, more foolish herein, than all Sons of 
Adam ? Give the wisest of us once a '^ fixed-idea," — 
which, though a temporary madness, who has not had ? 
— and see where his wisdom is ! The Chamois-hunter 

5 serves his doomed seven years in the Quicksilver Mines ; 
returns salivated to the marrow of the backbone ; and 
next morning — goes forth to hunt again. Behold Car- 
dalion King of Urinals ; with a woful ballad to his mis- 
tress' eyebrow ! He blows out, Werter-wise, his foolish 

10 existence, because she will not have it to keep ; — - heeds 
not that there are some five hundred millions of other 
mistresses in this noble Planet ; most likely much such 
as she. foolish men ! They sell their Inheritance 
(as their Mother did hers), though it is Paradise, for 

15 a crotchet : will they not, in every age, dare not only 
grapeshot and gallows-ropes, but Hell-fire itself, for bet- 
ter sauce to their victuals ? My friends, beware of fixed- 
ideas. 

Here, accordingly, is poor Boehmer with one in his 

20 head too ! He has been hawking his " irreducible case 
of Cardan," that Necklace of his, these three long years, 
through all Palaces and Ambassadors' Hotels, over the 
old " nine Kingdoms," or more of them than there now 
are : searching, sifting Earth, Sea and Air, for a cus- 

25 tomer. To take his Necklace in pieces ; and so, losing 
only his manual labor and expected glory, dissolve his 
fixed-idea, and fixed diamonds, into current ones : this 
were simply casting out the Devil — from himself ; a 
miracle, and perhaps more ! For he too has a Devil, or 
Devils : one mad object that he strives at ; that he too 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 69 

will attain, or go to Bedlam. Creditors, snarling, hound 
him on from without ; mocked Hopes, lost Labors, bear- 
bait him from within : to these torments his fixed-idea 
keeps him chained. In six-and-thirty weary revolutions 
of the Moon, was it wonderful the man's brain had got 5 
dried a little ? 

Behold, one day, being Court- Jeweller, he too bursts, 
almost as Rohan had done, into the Queen's retirement, 
or apartment; flings himself (as Campan again has 
recorded) at her Majesty's feet ; and there, with clasped lo 
uplifted hands, in passionate nasal-gutturals, with stream- 
ing tears and loud sobs, entreats her to do one of two 
things : Either to buy his Necklace ; or else graciously 
to vouchsafe him her royal permission to drown himself 
in the River Seine. Her Majesty, pitying the distracted 15 
bewildered state of the man, calmly points out the plain 
third course : Depecez voire Collier, Take your Necklace 
in pieces ; — adding withal, in a tone of queenly rebuke, 
that if he would drown himself, he at all times could, 
without her furtherance. 20 

Ah, had he drowned himself, with the Necklace in,^ 
his pocket ; and Cardinal Commendator at his skirts ! 
Kings, above all, beautiful Queens, as far-radiant Sym- 
bols on the pinnacles of the world, are so exposed to 
madmen. Should these two fixed-ideas that beset this 25 
beautifullest Queen, and almost burst through her Palace- 
walls, one day unite, and this not to jump into the River 
Seine : — what maddest result may be looked for ! 



70 THOMAS CARLYLE. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE ARTIST. 

If the reader has hitherto, in our too figurative lan- 
guage, seen only the figurative hook and the figurative 
eye, which Boehmer and Rohan, far apart, were respec- 
tively fashioning for each other, he shall now see the 

5 cunning Milliner (an actual, unmetaphorical Milliner) by 
whom these two individuals, with their two implements, 
are brought in contact, and hooked together into stupen- 
dous artificial Siamese-Twins; — after which the whole 
nodus and solution will naturally combine and unfold 

10 itself. 

Jeanne de Saint-Remi, by courtesy or otherwise, 
Countess styled also of Valois, and even of France, 
has now, in this year of Grace 1783, known the world 
for some seven-and-twenty summers ; and had crooks in 

15 her lot. She boasts herself descended, by what is called 
natural generation, from the Blood-Royal of Ifrance : 
Henri Second, before that fatal tourney-lance entered 
his right eye and ended him, appears to have had, 
successively or simultaneously, four — unmentionable 

20 women : and so, in vice of the third of these, came 
a certain Henri de Saint-Remi into this world ; and, 
as High and Puissant Lord, ate his victuals and spent 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 71 

his days, on an allotted domain of Fontette, near Bar- 
sur-Aube, in Champagne. Of High and Puissant Lords, 
at this Fontette, six other generations followed ; and 
thus ultimately, in a space of some two centuries, — 
succeeded in realizing this brisk little Jeanne de Saint- 5 
Remi, here in question. But, ah, what a falling-off ! 
The Royal Family of France has well nigh forgotten its 
left-hand collaterals : the last High and Puissant Lord 
(much dipt by his predecessors), falling into drink, and 
left by a scandalous world to drink his pitcher dry, had lo 
to alienate by degrees his whole worldly Possessions, 
down almost to the indispensable, or inexpressibles ; and 
die at last in the Paris Hotel-Dieu ; glad that it was not 
on the street. So that he has, indeed, given a sort 
of bastard royal life to little Jeanne, and her little 15 
brother ; but not the smallest earthly provender to keep 
it in. The mother, in her extremity, forms the won- 
derfullest connections; and little Jeanne, and her little 
brother, go out into the highways to beg. 

A charitable Countess Boulainvilliers, struck with the 20 
little bright-eyed tatterdemalion from the carriage-win- 
dow, picks her up ; has her scoured, clothed ; and rears 
her, in her fluctuating miscellaneous way, to be, about 
the age of twenty, a nondescript of Mantuamaker, Sou- 
brette. Court-beggar, Fine-lady, Abigail, and Scion-of- 25 
Royalty. Sad combination of trades ! The Court, after 
infinite soliciting, puts one off with a hungry dole of 
little more than thirty pounds a-year. Nay, the auda- 
cious Count Boulainvilliers dares, with what purposes he 
knows best, to offer some suspicious presents ! Where- 



72 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

upon his good Countess, especially as Mantuamaking 
languisheSj thinks it could not but be fit to go down to 
Bar-sur-Aube ; and there see whether no fractions of 
that alienated Fontette Property, held perhaps on in- 
5 secure tenure, may, by terror or cunning, be recoverable. 
Burning her paper patterns, pocketing her pension till 
more come. Mademoiselle Jeanne sallies out thither, in 
her twenty-third year. 
Nourished in this singular way, alternating between 

10 saloon and kitchen-table, with the loftiest of pretensions, 
meanest of possessions, our poor High and Puissant 
Mantuamaker has realized for herself a " face not beau- 
tiful, yet with a certain piquancy;" dark hair, blue 
eyes ; and a character, which the present Writer, a de- 

15 termined student of human nature, declares to be unde- 
cipherable. Let the Psychologists try it! Jeanne de- 
Saint-Eemi de Valois de France actually lived, and 
worked, and was : she has even published, at various 
times, three considerable Volumes of Autobiography, 

20 with loose Leaves (in Courts of Justice) of unknown 
number; wherein he that runs may read, — but not 
understand. Strange Volumes ! more like the screech- 
ing of distracted night-birds (suddenly disturbed by the 
torch of Police-Fowlers), than the articulate utterance 

25 of a rational unfeathered biped. Cheerfully admitting 
these statements to be all lies ; we ask. How any mor- 
tal could, or should, so lie ? 

The Psychologists, however, commit one sore mistake ; 
that of searching, in every character named human, for 
something like a conscience. Being mere contemplative 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 73 

recluses, for most part, and feeling that Morality is the 
heart of Life, they judge that with all the world it is so. 
jSTevertheless, as practical men are aware, Life can go on 
in excellent vigor, without crotchet of that kind. What 
is the essence of Life ? Volition ? Go deeper down, 5 
you find a much more universal root and characteristic : 
Digestion. While Digestion lasts. Life cannot, in philo- 
sophical language, be said to be extinct : and Digestion 
will give rise to Volitions enough ; at any rate, to De- 
sires and attempts, which may pass for such. He who 10 
looks neither before nor after, any farther than the 
Larder and Stateroom, which latter is properly the finest 
compartment of the Larder, will need no World-theory, 
Creed as it is called, or Scheme of Duties ; lightly leav- 
ing the world to wag as it likes with any theory or none, is 
his grand object is a theory and practice of ways and 
means. Not goodness or badness is the type of him : 
only shiftiness or shiftlessness. 

And now, disburdened of this obstruction, let the 
Psychologists consider it under a bolder view. Consider 20 
the brisk Jeanne de Saint-Kemi de Saint-Shifty as a 
Spark of vehement Life, not developed into Will of any 
kind, yet fully into Desires of all kinds, and cast into 
such a Life-element as we have seen. Vanity and Hun- 
ger ; a Princess of the Blood, yet whose father had sold 26 
his inexpressibles ; uncertain whether fosterdaughter of 
a fond Countess, with hopes skyhigh, or supernumerary 
Soubrette ; with not enough of mantuamaking : in a 
word, Gigmanity disgigged ; one of the saddest, pitiable, 
unpitied predicaments of man ! She is of that light 



74 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

unreflecting class, of that light unreflecting sex varium 
semper et 7iiutahile. And then her Fine-lady ism though 
a purseless one : capricious, coquettish, and with all the 
finer sensibilities of the heart; now in the rackets, now 
5 in the sullens ; vivid in contradictory resolves ; laugh- 
ing, weeping, without reason, — though these acts are 
said to be signs of reason. Consider too, how she has 
had to work her way, all along, by flattery and cajolery ; 
wheedling, eavesdropping, namby-pambying : how she 

10 needs wages, and knows no other productive trades. 
Thought can hardly be said to exist in her : only Per- 
ception and Device. With an understanding lynx-eyed 
for the surface of things, but which pierces beyond the 
surface of nothing ; every individual thing (for she has 

15 never seized the heart of it) turns up a new face to her 
every new day, and seems a thing changed, a different 
thing. Thus sits, or rather vehemently bobs and hovers 
her vehement mind, in the middle of a boundless many- 
dancing whirlpool of gilt-shreds, paper-clippings, and 

20 windfalls, — to which the revolving chaos of my Uncle 
Toby's Smoke-jack was solidity and regularity. Eeader! 
thou for thy sins must have met with such fair Irration- 
als ; fascinating, with their lively eyes, with their quick 
snappish fancies ; distinguished in the higher circles, in 

25 Fashion, even in Literature : they hum and buzz there, 
on graceful film-wings ; — searching, nevertheless, with 
the wonderfullest skill, for honey ; *^ ?mtamable as 
flies!" 

Wonderfullest skill for honey, we say; and, pray, 
mark that, as regards this Countess de Saint-Shifty. 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 75 

Her instinct-of-genius is prodigious ; her appetite fierce. 
In any foraging speculation of the private kind, she, 
unthinking as you call her, will be worth a hundred 
thinkers. And so of such untamable flies the untama- 
blest, Mademoiselle Jeanne, is now buzzing down, in the 5 
Bar-sur-Aube Diligence; to inspect the honey-jars of 
Fontette ; and see and smell whether there be any flaws 
in them. 

Alas, at Fontette, we can, with sensibility, behold 
straw-roofs we were nursed under ; farmers courteously 10 
offer cooked milk, and other country messes : but no 
soul will part with his Landed Property, for which, 
though cheap, he declares hard money was paid. The 
honey-jars are all close, then ? — However, a certain 
Monsieur de Lamotte, a tall Gendarme, home on fur- 15 
lough from Luneville, is now at Bar ; pays us attentions ; 
becomes quite particular in his attentions, — for we have 
a face " with a certain piquancy," the liveliest glib-snap- 
pish tongue, the liveliest kittenish manner (not yet 
hardened into ca^hood), with thirty pounds a-year, and 20 
prospects. M. de Lamotte, indeed, is as yet only a pri- 
vate sentinel ; but then a private sentinel in the Ge^i- 
darmes': and did not his father die fighting " at the head 
of his company,'* at Minden ? Why not in virtue of our 
own Countesship dub him too Count ; by left-hand col- 25 
lateralism, get him advanced ? — Finished before the fur- 
lough is done ! The untamablest of flies has again 
buzzed off ; in wedlock with M. de Lamotte ; if not to 
get honey, yet to escape spiders ; and so lies in gar- 
rison at Luneville, amid coquetries and hysterics, in 
Gigmanity disgigged, — disconsolate enough. 



76 THOMAS CABLYLE. 

At the end of four long years (too long), M. de La, 
motte, or call him now Count de Lamotte, sees good to 
lay down his fighting-gear (unhappily still only the mus- 
ket), and become what is by certain moderns called "a 
5 Civilian : " not a Civil-Law Doctor ; merely a Citizen, one 
who does not live by being killed. Alas ! cold eclipse 
has all along hung over the Lamotte household. Coun- 
tess Boulainvilliers, it is true, writes in the most feeling 
manner ; but then the Eoyal Finances are so deranged ! 

10 Without personal pressing solicitation, on the spot, no 
Court-solicitor, were his pension the meagrest, can hope 
to better it. At Luneville the sun, indeed, shines ; and 
there is a kind of Life ; but only an Un-Parisian, half or 
quarter Life ; the very tradesmen grow clamorous, and 

15 no cunningly devised fable, ready-money alone will ap- 
pease them. Commandant Marquis d'Autichamp agrees 
with Madame Boulainvilliers that a journey to Paris 
were the project ; whither, also, he himself is just going. 
Perfidious Commandant Marquis ! His plan is seen 

20 through : he dares to presume to make love to a Scion- 
of-Eoyalty ; or to hint that he could dare to presume to 
do it ! Whereupon, indignant Count de Lamotte, as we 
said, throws up his commission, and down his fire-arms, 
without further delay. The King loses a tall private 

25 sentinel ; the World has a new black-leg : and Monsieur 
and Madame de Lamotte take places in the Diligence for 
Strasburg. 

Good Fostermother Boulainvilliers, however, is no 
longer at Strasburg : she is forward at the Archiepisco- 
pal Palace in Saverne ; on a visit there, to his Eminence 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. T7 

Cardinal Commendator, Grand-Almoner Archbishop 
Prince Louis de Eohan ! Thus, then, has Destiny at 
last brought it about. Thus, after long wanderings, on 
paths so far separate, has the time come, in this late 
year 1783, when, of all the nine hundred millions of the 5 
Earth's denizens, these preappointed Two behold each 
other ! 

The foolish Cardinal, since no sublunary means, not 
even bribing of the Trianon Concierge, will serve, has 
taken to the superlunary : he is here, with his fixed-idea lO 
and volcanic vaporosity darkening, under Cagliostro's 
management, into thicker and thicker opaque, — of the 
Black-Art itself. To the glance of hungry genius. Car- 
dinal and Cagliostro could not but have meaning. A 
flush of astonishment, a sigh over boundless wealth (for 15 
the mountains of debt lie invisible) in the hands of 
boundless Stupidity ; some vague looming of indefinite 
hope : all this one can well fancy. But alas, what, to a 
high plush Cardinal, is a now insolvent Scion-of-Eoyalty, 
— though with a face of some piquancy ? The good 20 
Fostermother's visit, in any case, can last but three 
days ; then, amid old namby-pambyings, with effusions 
of the nobler sensibilities and tears of pity at least for 
one's self. Countess de Lamotte, and husband, must off 
with her to Paris, and new possibilities at Court. Only 25 
when the sky again darkens, can this vague looming 
from Saverne look out, by fits, as a cheering weather- 
sign. 



78 THOMAS CARLYLE. 



CHAPTER VI. 

WILL THE TWO FIXED-IDEAS UNITE? 

However, the sky, according to custom, is not long in 
darkening again. The King's finances, we repeat, are 
in so distracted a state ! No D'Ormesson, no Joly de 
Fleury, wearied with milking the already dry, will 
5 increase that scandalous Thirty Pounds of a Scion-of- 
Eoyalty by a single doit. Calonne himself, who has a 
willing ear and encouraging word for all mortals what- 
soever, only with difficulty, and by aid of Madame of 
France, raises it to some still miserable Sixty-five. 

10 Worst of all, the good Fostermother Boulainvilliers, in 
few months, suddenly dies : the wretched widower, sit- 
ting there, with his white handkerchief, to receive con- 
dolences, with closed shutters, mortuary tapestries, and 
sepulchral cressets burning (which, however, the instant 

15 the condolences are gone, he blows out, to save oil), has 
the audacity again, amid crocodile tears, to — drop hints ! 
Nay more, he, wretched man in all senses, abridges the 
Lamotte table ; will besiege virtue both in the positive 
and negative way. The Lamottes, wintry as the world 

20 looks, cannot be gone too soon. 

As to Lamotte the husband, he, for shelter against 
much, decisively dives down to the " subterranean shades 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 79 

of Eascaldom ; '' gambles, swindles ; can hope to live, 
miscellaneously, if not by the Grace of God, yet by the 
Oversight of the Devil, — for a time. Lamotte the wife 
also makes her packages : and waving the unseductive 
Count Boulainvillier Save-all a disdainful farewell, re- 6 
moves to the Belle Image in Versailles ; there within 
wind of Court, in attic apartments, on poor water-gruel 
board, resolves to await what can betide. So much, in 
few months of this fateful year, 1783, has come and gone. 

Poor Jeanne de Saint-Eemi de Lamotte Valois, Ex- lo 
Mantuamaker, Scion-of-Eoyalty ! What eye, looking 
into those bare attic apartments and water-gruel platters 
of the Belle Image, but must, in spite of itself, grow dim 
with almost a kind of tear for thee ! There thou art, 
with thy quick lively glances, face of a certain piquancy, 15 
thy gossamer untamable character, snappish sallies, glib 
all-managing tongue ; thy whole incarnated, garmented, 
and so sharply appetent " spark of Life ; " cast down 
alive into this World, without vote of thine (for the 
Elective Franchises have not yet got that length) ; and 20 
wouldst so fain live there. Paying scot-and-lot ; provid- 
ing, or fresh-scouring silk court-dresses ; " always keep- 
ing a gig ! '' Thou must hawk and shark to and fro, 
from anteroom to anteroom ; become a kind of terror to 
all men in place, and women that influence such ; dance 25 
not light Ionic measures, but attendance merely ; have 
weepings, thanksgiving effusions, aulic, almost forensic, 
eloquence : perhaps eke out thy thin livelihood by some 
coquetries, in the small way ; — and so, most poverty- 
stricken, cold-blighted, yet with young keen blood strug- 



80 THOMAS CARLYLE, 

gling against it, spin forward thy unequal feeble thread, 
which the Atropos-scissors will soon clip ! 

Surely now, if ever, were that vague looming from 
Saverne welcome, as a weather-sign. How doubly wel- 

5 come is his plush Eminence's personal arrival; — for 
with the earliest spring he has come in person, as he 
periodically does ; vaporific, driven by his fixed-idea. 

Genius, of the mechanical practical kind, what is it 
but a bringing together of two Forces that fit each other, 

10 that will give birth to a third ? Ever, from Tubalcain's 
time, Iron lay ready hammered ; AVater, also, was boil- 
ing and bursting ; nevertheless, for want of a genius, 
there was as yet no Steam-engine. In his Eminence 
Prince Louis, in that huge, restless, incoherent Being of 

15 his, depend on it, brave Countess, there are Forces deep, 
manifold ; nay, a fixed-idea concentrates the whole huge 
Incoherence as it were into one Force : cannot the eye 
of genius discover its fellow ? 

Communing much Avith the Court valetaille, our brave 

20 Countess has more than once heard talk of Boehmer, of 
his Necklace, and threatened death by water ; in the 
course of gossiping and tattling, this topic from time to 
time emerges ; is commented upon with empty laughter, 
— as if there lay no farther meaning in it. To the com- 

25 mon eye there is indeed none : but to the eye of genius ? 
In some moment of inspiration, the question rises on 
our brave Lamotte : Were not this, of all extant Forces, 
the cognate one that would unite with Eminence Ro- 
han's ? Great moment, light-beaming, fire-flashing ; like 
birth of Minerva ; like all moments of Creation ! Fancy 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE, 81 

how pulse and breath, flutter, almost stop, in the great- 
ness : the great not Divine Idea, the great Diabolic Idea, 
is too big for her. — Thought (how often must we repeat 
it ?) rules the world. Fire and, in a less degree, Frost ; 
Earth and Sea (for what is your swiftest ship, or steam- 5 
ship, but a Thought — embodied in wood ?) ; Reformed 
Parliaments, rise and ruin of Nations, — sale of Dia- 
monds : all things obey Thought. Countess de Saint- 
Remi de Lamotte, by power of Thought, is now a made 
woman. With force of genius she represses, crushes 10 
deep down, her Undivine Idea ; bends all her faculty to 
realize it. Prepare thyself. Reader, for a series of the 
most surprising Dramatic Representations ever exhibited 
on any stage. 

We hear tell of Dramatists, and scenic illusion how 15 
" natural," how illusive it was : if the spectator, for 
some half-moment, can half-deceive himself into the 
belief that it was real, he departs doubly content. With 
all which, and much more of the like, I have no quarrel. 
But what must be thought of the Female Dramatist who, 20 
for eighteen long months, can exhibit the beautifullest 
Fata-morgana to a plush Cardinal, wide awake, with fifty 
years on his head ; and so lap him in her scenic illusion 
that he never doubts but it is all firm earth, and the 
pasteboard Coulisse-trees are producing Hesperides ap- 25 
pies ? Could Madame de Lamotte, then, have written a 
Hamlet ? I conjecture, not. More goes to the writing 
of a Hamlet than completest " imitation " of all charac- 
ters and things in this Earth; there goes, before and 



82 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

beyond all, the rarest understanding of these, insight 
into their hidden essences and harmonies. Erasmus's 
Ape, as is known in Literary History, sat by while its 
Master was shaving, and '^ imitated " every point of the 

5 process; but its own foolish beard grew never the 
smoother. 

As in looking at a finished Drama, it were nowise 
meet that the spectator first of all got behind the scenes, 
and saw the burnt-corks, brayed-resin, thunder-barrels, 

10 and withered hunger-bitten men and women, of which 
such heroic work was made : so here with the reader. 
A peep into the side-scenes shall be granted him, from 
time to time. But, on the whole, repress, reader, that 
too insatiable scientific curiosity of thine ; let thy ces- 

15 thetiG feeling first have play ; and witness what a Pros- 
pero's-grotto poor Eminence Rohan is led into, to be 
pleased he knows not why. 

Survey first what we might call the stage-lights, orches- 
tra, general structure of the theatre, mood and condition 

20 of the audience. The theatre is the World, with its rest- 
less business and madness ; near at hand rise the royal 
Domes of Versailles, mystery around them, and as 
background the memory of a thousand years. By the 
side of the River Seine walks, haggard, wasted, a Joail- 

25 lier-Bijoutier de la Reine, with Necklace in his pocket. 
The audience is a drunk Christopher Sly in the fittest 
humor. A fixed-idea, driving him headlong over steep 
places, like that of the Gadarenes' Swine, has produced 
a deceptibility, as of desperation, that will clutch at 
straws. Understand one other word ; Cagliostro is 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 83 

prophesying to him ! The Quack of Quacks has now for 
years had him in leading. Transmitting "predictions in 
cipher ; " questioning, before Hieroglyphic Screens, 
Columbs in a state of innocence, for elixirs of life, and 
philosopher's stone ; unveiling, in fuliginous clear- 5 
obscure, an imaginary majesty of Nature ; he isolates 
him more and more from all unpossessed men. Was it 
not enough that poor Rohan had become a dissolute, 
somnolent-violent, ever-vapory Mud-volcano ; but black 
Egyptian magic must be laid on him ! 10 

If perhaps, too, our Countess de Lamotte, with her 
blandishments — ? For though not beautiful, she " has 
a certain piquancy " et cetera ! — Enough, his poor Emi- 
nence sits in the fittest place, in the fittest mood : a 
newly -awakened Christopher Sly ; and with his " small 15 
ale," too, beside him. Touch, only, the lights with fire- 
tipt rod ; and let the orchestra, soft-warbling, strike up 
their fara-lara fiddle-diddle-dee ! 



84 THOMAS CARLYLE. 



CHAPTER VII. 

MARIE- ANTOINETTE. 

Such a soft-warbling fara-lara was it to his Eminence, 
when, in early January of the year 1784, our Countess 
first, mysteriously, and under seal of sworn secrecy, 
hinted to him that, with her winning tongue and great 

5 talent as Anecdotic Historian, she had worked a passage 
to the ear of Queen's Majesty itself. Gods ! dost thou 
bring with thee airs from Heaven ? Is thy face yet 
radiant with some reflex of that Brightness beyond 
bright ? — Men with fixed-idea are not as other men. 

10 To listen to a plain varnished tale, such as your Drama- 
tist can fashion ; to ponder the words ; to snuff them up, 
as Ephraim did the east-wind, and grow flatulent and 
drunk with them : what else could poor Eminence do ? 
His poor somnolent, so swift-rocked soul feels a new ele- 

15 ment infused into it ; turbid resinous light, wide-corus- 
cating, glares over the waste of his imagination. Is he 
interested in the mysterious tidings ? Hope has seized 
them ; there is in the world nothing else that interests 
him. 

20 The secret friendship of Queens is not a thing to be 
let sleep : ever new Palace Interviews occur ; — yet in 
deepest privacy ; for how should her Majesty awaken so 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 85 

many tongues of Principalities and Nobilities, male and 
female, that spitefully watch her ? Above all, however, 
" on the 2d of February," that day of " the Procession of 
blue E-ibands," much was spoken of : somewhat, too, of 
Monseigneur de Eohan ! — Poor Monseigneur, hadst thou 5 
three long ears, thou'dst hear her. 

But will she not, perhaps, in some future priceless 
Interview, speak a good word for thee ? Thyself shalt 
speak it, happy Eminence ; at least, write it : our tute- 
lary Countess will be the bearer ! — On the 21st of March 10 
goes off that long exculpatory imploratory Letter : it is 
the first Letter that went off from Cardinal to Queen ; to 
be followed, in time, by " above two hundred others ; " 
which are graciously answered by verbal Messages, nay at 
length by Poyal Autographs on gilt paper, — the whole 15 
delivered by our tutelary Countess. The tutelary Count- 
ess comes and goes, fetching and carrying; with the 
gravity of a Roman Augur, inspects those extraordi- 
nary chicken-bowels, and draws prognostics from them. 
Things are in fair train : the Dauphiness took some 20 
offence at Monseigneur, but the Queen has nigh forgot- 
ten it. No inexorable Queen ; ah no ! So good, so free, 
light-hearted ; only sore beset with malicious Polignacs 
and others ; — at times, also, short of money. 

Marie Antoinette, as the reader well knows, has been 25 
much blamed for want of Etiquette. Even now, when 
the other accusations against her have sunk down to 
oblivion and the Father of Lies, this of wanting Eti- 
quette survives her ; — in the Castle of Ham, at this 



86 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

hour, M. de Polignac and Company may be wringing 
their hands, not without an oblique glance at her for 
bringing them thither. She indeed discarded Etiquette ; 
once, when her carriage broke down, she even entered a 

5 hackney-coach. She would walk, too, at Trianon, in 
mere straw-hat, and perhaps muslin gown ! Hence, the 
Knot of Etiquette being loosed, the Frame of Society 
broke up ; and those astonishing " Horrors of the French 
Revolution" supervened. On what Damocles' hairs 

10 must the judgment-sword hang over this distracted 
Earth ? Thus, however, it was that Tenterden Steeple 
brought an influx of the Atlantic on us, and so Godwin 
Sands. Thus, too, might it be that because Father Noah 
took the liberty of, say, rinsing out his wine-vat, his 

15 Ark was floated off, and a world drowned. — Beautiful 
Highborn that wert so foully hurled low! For, if thy 
Being came to thee out of old Hapsburg Dynasties, came 
it not also (like my own) out of Heaven ? Sunt lachry- 
mcB rerum, et mentem ynortalia tangunt. Oh, is there a 

20 man's heart that thinks, without pity, of those long 
months and years of slow-wasting ignominy ; — of thy 
birth, soft-cradled in Imperial Schonbrunn, the winds of 
heaven not to visit thy face too roughly, thy foot to 
light on softness, thy eye on splendor; and then of 

25 thy Death or hundred Deaths, to which the Guillotine 
and Fouquier Tinville's judgment-bar was but the merci- 
ful end? Look there, man born of woman! The 
bloom of that fair face is wasted, the hair is gray with 
care ; the brightness of those eyes is quenched, their lids 
hang drooping, the face is stony pale as of one living in 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 87 

death. Mean weeds, which her own hand has mended, 
attire the Queen of the World. The death-hurdle, where 
thou sittest pale, motionless, which only curses environ, 
has to stop : a people, drunk with vengeance, will drink 
it again in full draught, looking at thee there. Far as 5 
the eye reaches, a multitudinous sea of maniac heads ; 
the air deaf with their triumph-yell ! The Living-dead 
must shudder with yet one other pang; her startled 
blood yet again suffuses with the hue of agony that pale 
face, which she hides with her hands. There is then no lo 
heart to say, God pity thee ? Oh think not of these ; 
think of Him whom thou worshippest, the Crucified, — 
who also treading the wine-press alone, fronted sorrow 
still deeper ; and triumphed over it, and made it holy ; 
and built of it a '^ Sanctuary of Sorrow," for thee and all 15 
the wretched ! Thy path of thorns is nigh ended. One 
long last look at the Tuileries, where thy step was once 
so light, — where thy children shall not dwell. The 
head is on the block ; the axe rushes — Dumb lies the 
World ; that wild-yelling World, and all its madness, is 20 
behind thee. 

Beautiful Highborn that wert so foully hurled low ! 
Rest yet in thy innocent gracefully heedless seclusion, 
unintruded on by me, while rude hands have not yet 
desecrated it. Be the curtains, that shroud-in (if for 25 
the last time on this Earth) a Royal Life, still sacred to 
me. Thy fault, in the French Revolution, was that thou 
wert the Symbol of the Sin and Misery of a thousand 
years; that with Saint-Bartholomews, and Jg^cqueries, 
with Gabelles, and Dragonades, and Parcs-aux-cerfs, 



88 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

the heart of mankind was filled full, — and foamed over, 
into all-involving madness. To no Napoleon, to no 
Cromwell wert thou wedded : such sit not in the highest 
rank, of themselves ; are raised on high by the shaking 
5 and confounding of all the ranks ! As poor peasants, how 
happy, worthy had ye two been ! But by evil destiny 
ye were made a King and Queen of ; and so both once 
more — are become an astonishment and a by-word to 
all times. 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 89 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE TWO FIXED-IDEAS WILL UNITE. 

'• Countess de Lamotte, then, had penetrated into the 
confidence of the Queen ? Those gilt-paper Autographs 
were actually written by the Queen?" Reader, forget 
not to repress that too insatiable scientific curiosity of 
thine ! What I know is, that a certain Villette-de- 5 
R^taux, with military whiskers, denizen of Rascaldom, 
comrade there of Monsieur le Comte, is skilful in imitat- 
ing hands. Certain it is also, that Madame la Comtesse 
has penetrated to the Trianon — Doorkeeper's. Nay, as 
Campan herself must admit, she has met, " at a Man- lo 
midwife's in Versailles," with worthy Queen's-valet Les- 
claux, — or Desclos, for there is no uniformity in it. 
With these, or the like of these, she in the back-parlor 
of the Palace itself (if late enough), may pick a merry- 
thought, sip the foam from a glass of Champagne. No l^ 
farther seek her honors to disclose, for the present ; or 
anatomically dissect, as we said, those extraordinary 
chicken-bowels, from which she, and she alone, can read 
Decrees of Fate, and also realize them. 

Sceptic, seest thou his Eminence waiting there, in the 20 
moonlight ; hovering to and fro on the back terrace, till 
she come out — from the ineffable Interview ? He is 



90 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

close muifled ; walks restlessly observant ; shy also, and 
courting the shade. She comes : up closer with thy 
capote, Eminence, down with thy broadbrim ; for she 
has an escort ! 'Tis but the good Monsieur Queen's- 
5 valet Lesclaux : and now he is sent back again, as no 
longer needful. Mark him, Monseigneur, nevertheless ; 
thou wilt see him yet another time. Monseigneur marks 
little : his heart is in the ineffable Interview, in the gilt- 
paper Autograph alone. — Queen's-valet Lesclaux ? Me- 

10 thinks he has much the stature of Villette, denizen of 
Rascaldom ! Impossible ! 

How our Countess managed with Cagliostro ? Cagli- 
ostro, gone from Strasburg, is as yet far distant, winging 
his way through dim Space ; will not be here for 

15 months : only his "predictions in cipher" are here. 
Here or there, however, Cagliostro, to our Countess, can 
be useful. At a glance, the eye of genius has descried 
him to be a bottomless slough of falsity, vanity, gulosity 
and thick-eyed stupidity: of foulest material, but of 

20 fattest ; — fit compost for the Plant she is rearing. Him 
who has deceived all Europe she can undertake to 
deceive. His Columbs, demonic Masonries, Egyptian 
Elixirs, what is all this to the light-giggling exclusively 
practical Lamotte ? It runs off from her, as all specula- 

25 tion, good, bad and indifferent, has always done, " like 
water from one in wax-cloth dress." With the lips 
meanwhile she can honor it ; Oil of Flattery, the best 
patent antifriction known, subdues all irregularities 
whatsoever. 

On Cagliostro, again, on his side, a certain uneasy 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 91 

feeling might, for moments, intrude itself; the raven 
loves not ravens. But what can he do ? Nay, she is 
partly playing his game : can he not spill her full cup 
yet, at the right season, and pack her out of doors ? 
Oftenest in their joyous orgies, this light fascinating 5 
Countess, — who perhaps has a design on his heart, 
seems to him but one other of those light Fapiliones, 
who have fluttered round him in all climates ; whom 
with grim muzzle he has snapt by the thousand. 

Thus, what with light fascinating Countess, what with 10 
Quack of Quacks, poor Eminence de Eohan lies safe ; 
his mud-volcano placidly simmering in thick Egyptian 
haze : withdrawn from all the world. Moving figures, 
as of men, he sees ; takes not the trouble to look at. 
Court-cousins rally him ; are answered in silence ; or, if 15 
it go too far, in mud-explosions terrifico-absurd. Court- 
cousins and all mankind are unreal shadows merely ; 
Queen's favor the only substance. 

Nevertheless, the World, on its side too, has an exist- 
ence ; lies not idle in these days. It has got its 20 
Versailles Treaty signed, long months ago ; and the 
plenipotentiaries all home again, for votes of thanks. 
Paris, London and other great Cities and small, are 
working, intriguing ; dying, being born. There, in the 
Eue Taranne, for instance, the once noisy Denis Diderot 25 
has fallen silent enough. Here also, in Bolt Court, old 
Samuel Johnson, like an over-weai;ied Giant, must lie 
down, and slumber without dream ; — the rattling of 
carriages and wains, and all the world's din and business 



92 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

rolling by, as ever, from of old. — Sieiir Boehmer, how- 
ever, has not yet drowned himself in the Seine; only 
walks haggard, wasted, purposing to do it. 

News (by the merest accident in the world) reach 

5 Sieur Boehmer, of Madame's new favor with her 
Majesty ! Men will do much before they drown. Sieur 
Boehmer's Necklace is on Madame's table, his guttural- 
nasal rhetoric in her ear : he will abate many a pound 
and penny of the first just price ; he will give cheerfully 

10 a thousand Louis-d'or, as cadeau, to the generous Scion- 
of-Royalty that shall persuade her Majesty. The man's 
importunities grow quite annoying to our Countess; 
who, in her glib way, satirically prattles how she has 
been bored, — to Monseigneur, among others. 

15 Dozing on down cushions, far inwards, with soft 
ministering Hebes, and luxurious appliances ; with 
ranked Hey dues, and a Valetaille innumerable, that 
shut out the prose-world and its discord : thus lies Mon- 
seigneur, in enchanted dream. Can he, even in sleep, 

20 forget his tutelary Countess, and her service ? By the 
delicatest presents he alleviates her distresses, most 
undeserved. Nay, once or twice, gilt Autographs, from 
a Queen, — with whom he is evidently rising to unknown 
heights in favor, — have done Monseigneur the honor 

25 to make him her Majesty's Grand Almoner, when 
the case was pressing. Monseigneur, we say, has had 
the honor to disburse charitable cash, on her Majesty's 
behalf, to this or the other distressed deserving object : 
say only to the length of a . few thousand pounds, 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 93 

advanced from his own funds; — her Majesty being at 
the moment so poor, and charity a thing that will not 
wait. Always Madame, good, foolish, gadding creature, 
takes charge of delivering the money. — Madame can 
descend from her attics, in the Belle Image ; and feel 5 
the smiles of Nature and Fortune, a little ; so bounteous 
has the Queen's Majesty been. 

To Monseigneur the power of money over highest 
female hearts had never been incredible. Presents 
have, many times, worked wonders. But then, 10 
Heavens, what present ? Scarcely were the Cloud-Com- 
peller himself, all coined into new Louis-d'or, worthy 
to alight in such a lap. Loans, charitable disburse- 
ments, however, as we see, are permissible ; these, by 
defect of payment, may become presents. In the vortex 15 
of his Eminence's day-dreams, lumbering multiform 
slowly round, this of importunate Boehmer and his 
Necklace, from time to time, turns up. Is the Queen's 
Majesty at heart desirous of it ; but again, at the 
moment, too poor ? Our tutelary Countess answers 20 
vaguely, mysteriously ; — confesses, at last, under oath of 
secrecy, her own private suspicion that the Queen wants 
this same Necklace, of all things ; but dare not, for a 
stingy husband, buy it. She, the Countess de Lamotte, 
will look farther into the matter ; and, if aught service- 25 
able to his Eminence can be suggested, in a good way 
suggest it, in the proper quarter. 

Walk warily. Countess de Lamotte ; for now, with 
thickening breath, thou approachest the moment of 
moments ! Principalities and Powers, Parlement, Grand 



94 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

Chairibre and Tournelle, with all their whips and gibbet- 
wheels ; the very Crack of Doom hangs over thee, if 
thou trip. Forward, with nerve of iron, on shoes of 
felt; like a Treasure-digger, in silence, looking neither 
to the right nor left, — where yawn abysses deep as the 
Pool, and all Pandemonium hovers, eager to rend thee 
into rags ! 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 95 



CHAPTER IX. 

PARK OF VERSAILLES. 

Or will the reader incline rather, taking the other and 
sunny side of the matter, to enter that Lamottic Circean 
theatrical establishment of Monseigneur de Eohan j and 
see there how, under the best of Dramaturgists, Melo- 
drama with sweeping pall flits past him ; while the 5 
enchanted Diamond fruit is gradually ripening, to fall 
by a shake ? 

The 28th of July, of this same momentous 1784, has 
come ; and with it the most rapturous tumult into the 
heart of Monseigneur. Ineffable expectancy stirs-up 10 
his whole soul, with the much that lies therein, from 
its lowest foundations : borne on wild seas to Armida 
Islands, yet as is fit, through Horror dim-hovering 
round, he tumultuously rocks. To the Chateau, to the 
Park ! This night the Queen will meet thee, the Queen 15 
herself : so far has our tutelary Countess brought it. 
What can ministerial impediments, Polignac intrigues, 
avail against the favor, nay — Heaven and Earth ! — 
perhaps the tenderness of a Queen ? She vanishes from 
amid their meshwork of Etiquette and Cabal ; descends 20 
from her celestial Zodiac, to thee a shepherd of Latmos. 
Alas, a white-bearded pursy shepherd, fat and scant of 



96 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

breath ! Who can account for the taste of females ? 
But thou, burnish-up thy whole faculties of gallantry, 
thy fifty-years experience of the sex; this night, or 
never 1 — In such unutterable meditations does Monseig- 

5 neur restlessly spend the day ; and long for darkness, 
yet dread it. 

Darkness has at length come. The perpendicular rows 
of Heyducs, in that Palais or Hotel de Strasbourg, are all 
cast horizontal, prostrate in sleep ; the very Concierge 

10 resupine, with open mouth, audibly drinks-in nepenthe ; 
when Monseigneur, "in blue great-coat, with slouched 
hat, issues softly, with his henchman Planta of the 
Grisons, to the Park of Versailles. Planta must loiter 
invisible in the distance ; Slouched-hat will wait here, 

15 among the leafy thickets ; till our tutelary Countess, 
" in black domino," announce the moment, which surely 
must be near. 

The night is of the darkest for the season ; no Moon ; 
warm, slumbering July, in motionless clouds, drops fat- 

20 ness over the Earth. The very stars from the Zenith 
see not Monseigneur ; see only his and the world's cloud- 
covering, fringed with twilight in the far North. Mid- 
night, telling itself forth from these shadowy Palace 
Domes ? All the steeples of Versailles, the villages 

25 around, with metal tongue, and huge Paris itself dull- 
droning, answer drowsily. Yes ! Sleep rules this Hemi- 
sphere of the World. Prom Arctic to Antarctic, the Life 
of our Earth lies all, in long swaths, or rows (like those 
rows of Heyducs and snoring Concierge), successively 
mown down, from vertical to horizontal, by Sleep ! 
Pather curious to consider. 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 97 

The flowers are all asleep in Little Trianon, the 
roses folded-in for the night ; but the Eose of Roses 
still wakes. wondrous Earth! doubly wondrous 
Park of Versailles, with Little and Great Trianon, — 
and a scarce-breathing Monseigneur ! Ye Hydraulics of 5 
Lenotre, that also slumber, with stop-cocks, in your deep 
leaden chambers, babble not of hivi, when ye arise. Ye 
odorous balm-shrubs, huge spectral Cedars, thou sacred 
Boscage of Hornbeam, ye dim Pavilions of the Peerless,, 
whisper not ! Moon, lie silent, hidden in thy vacant 10 
cave J no star look down : let neither Heaven nor Hell 
peep through the blanket of the Night, to cry, Hold, 
Hold ! —The Black Domino ? Ha ! Yes ! — With stouter 
step than might have been expected, Monseigneur is 
under way ; the Black Domino had only to whisper, 15 
low and eager: "In the Hornbeam Arbor !" And now, 
Cardinal, now! — Yes, there hovers the white Celes- 
tial ; " in white robe of linon mouchete,''^ finer than 
moonshine ; a Juno by her bearing : there, in that bos- 
ket ! Monseigneur, down on thy knees ; never can red 20 
breeches be better wasted. Oh, he would kiss the royal 
shoe-tie, or its shadow if there were one : not words ; 
only broken gaspings, murmuring prostrations, elo- 
quently speak his meaning. But, ah, behold! Our 
tutelary Black Domino, in haste, with vehement whis- 25 
per : " On vient.^' The w^hite Juno drops a fairest Eose, 
with these ever-memorable words, " Vous savez ce qiie 
cela veut dire, You know what that means ; " vanishes 
in the thickets, the Black Domino hurrying her with 
eager whisper of " Vite^ vite, Away, away ! " for the sound 



98 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

of footsteps (doubtless from Madame, and Madame 
d'Artois, unwelcome sisters that they are !) is approach- 
ing fast. Monseigneur picks up his Eose ; runs as for 
the King's plate, almost overturns poor Planta, whose 

5 laugh assures him that all is safe. 

Ixion de Rohan, happiest mortal of this world, 
since the first Ixion, of deathless memory, — who never- 
theless, in that cloud-embrace, begat strange Centaurs ! 
Thou art Prime Minister of France without peradven- 

10 ture : is not this the Rose of Royalty, worthy to become 
ottar of roses, and yield perfume forever ? How thou, 
of all people, wilt contrive to govern France, in these 
very peculiar times — But that is little to the matter. 
There, doubtless, is thy Rose (which methinks, it were 

15 well to have a Box or Casket made for) : nay, was there 
not in the dulcet of thy Juno's " Votes savez " a kind of 
trepidation, a quaver, — as of still deeper meanings ! 

Reader, there is hitherto no item of this miracle that 
is not historically proved and true. — In distracted 

20 black-magical phantasmagory, adumbrations of yet 
higher and highest Dalliances hover stupendous in the 
background : whereof your Georgels, and Campans, and 
other official characters can take no notice ! There, in 
distracted black-magical phantasmagory, let these hover. 

25 The truth of them for us is that they do so hover. The 
truth of them in itself is known only to three per- 
sons : Dame self-styled Countess de Lamotte ; the Devil ; 
and Philippe Egalite, — who furnished money and facts 
for the Lamotte Memoirs, and, before guillotinement, 
begat the present King of the French. 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 99 

Enough, that Ixion de Rohan, lapsed almost .nto deli- 
quium, by such sober certainty of waking bliss, is the 
happiest of all men 5 and his tutelary Countess the dear- 
est of all women, save one only. On the 25th of August 
(so strong still are those villanous Drawing-room cabals) 5 
he goes, weeping, but submissive, by order of a gilt 
Autograph, home to Saverne ; till farther dignities can 
be matured for him. He carries his Eose, now consid- 
erably faded, in a Casket of fit price ; may, if he so 
please, perpetuate it as pot-pourri. He names a favorite 10 
walk in his Archiepiscopal pleasure-grounds, Tromenade 
de la Rose ; there let him court digestion, and loyally 
somnambulate till called for. 

I notice it as a coincidence in chronology, that, few 
days after this date, the Demoiselle (or even, for the 15 
last month. Baroness) Gay d'Oliva began to find Countess 
de Lamotte " not at home," in her fine Paris hotel, in her 
fine Charonne country-house ; and went no more, with 
Villette, and such pleasant dinner-guests, and her, to see 
Beaumarchais' Mar tag e de Figaro running its hundred 20 
nights. 



100 THOMAS CARLYLE. 



CHAPTER X. 



BEHIND THE SCENES. 



" The Queen ? " Good reader, thou surely art not a 
Partridge the Schoolmaster or a Monseigneur de Eohan, 
to mistake the stage for a reality ! — " But who this 
Demoiselle d'Oliva was ? " Eeader, let us remark 

5 rather how the labors of our Dramaturgic Countess are 
increasing. 

New actors I see on the scene ; not one of whom shall 
guess what the other is doing ; or, indeed, know rightly 
what himself is doing. For example, cannot Messieurs 

10 de Lamotte and Villette, of Rascaldom, like Nisus and 
Euryalus, take a midnight walk of contemplation, with 
" footsteps of Madame and Madame d' Artois '' (since all 
footsteps are much the same), without offence to any 
one ? A Queen's Similitude can believe that a Queen's 

15 Self, for frolic's sake, is looking at her through the 
thickets ; a terrestrial Cardinal can kiss with devotion a 
celestial Queen's slipper, or Queen's Similitude's slip- 
per, — and no one but a Black Domino the wiser. All 
these shall follow each his precalculated course ; for 

20 their inward mechanism is known, and fit wires hook 
themselves on this. To Two only is a clear belief 
vouchsafed : to Monseigneur, a clear belief founded on 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 101 

stupidity : to the great creative Dramaturgist, sitting at 
the heart of the whole mystery, a clear belief founded 
on completest insight. Great creative Dramaturgist ! 
How, like Schiller, "by union of the Possible with 
the Necessarily existing, she brings out the " — Eighty 5 
thousand Pounds ! Don Aranda, with his triple-sealed 
missives and hoodwinked secretaries, bragged justly 
that he cut down the Jesuits in one day : but here, with- 
out ministerial salary, or King's favor, or any help 
beyond her own black domino, labors a greater than he. lo 
How she advances, stealthily, steadfastly, with Argus 
eye and ever-ready brain ; with nerve of iron, on shoes 
of felt ! worthy to have intrigued for Jesuitdom, for 
Pope's Tiara ; — to have been Pope Joan thyself, in 
those old days ; and as Arachne of Arachnes, sat in the 15 
centre of that stupendous spider-web, which, reaching 
from Goa to Acapulco, and from Heaven to Hell, over- 
netted the thoughts and souls of men ! — Of which 
spider-web stray tatters, in favorable dewy mornings, 
even yet become visible. 20 

The Demoiselle d'Oliva? She is a Parisian Demoi- 
selle of three-and-twenty, tall, blond and beautiful ; from 
unjust guardians, and an evil world, she has had some- 
what to suffer. 

"In this month of June 1784," says the Demoiselle 25 
herself, in her (judicial) Autobiography, " I occupied a 
small apartment in the Eue du Jour, Quartier St. Eus- 
tache. I was not far from the Garden of the Palais- 
Royal ; I had made it my usual promenade." For, indeed, 
the real God's-truth is, I was a Parisian unfortunate- 



102 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

female, with moderate custom ; and one must go where 
his market lies. "I frequently passed three or four hours 
of the afternoon there, with some women of my acquaint- 
ance, and a little child of four years old, whom I was 

5 fond of, whom his parents willingly trusted with me. I 
even went thither alone, except for him, when other com- 
pany failed. 

" One afternoon, in the month of July following, I 
was at the Palais-Eoyal : my whole company, at the mo- 

10 ment, was the child I speak of. A tall young man, walk- 
ing alone, passes several times before me. He was a 
man I had never seen. He looks at me ; he looks fixedly 
at me. I observe even that always, as he comes near, 
he slackens his pace, as if to survey me more at leisure. 

15 A chair stood vacant ; two or three feet from mine. He 
seats himself there. 

"Till this instant, the sight of the young man, his 
walks, his approaches, his repeated gazings, had made 
no impression on me. But now when he was sitting so 

20 close by, I could not avoid noticing him. His eyes 
ceased not to wander over all my person. His air be- 
comes earnest, grave. An unquiet curiosity appears to 
agitate him. He seems to measure my figure, to seize 
by turns all parts of my physiognomy. — He finds me 

25 (but whispers not a syllable of it) tolerably like, both in 
person and profile ; for even the Abbe Georgel says, I 
was a belle courtisane. 

" It is time to name this young man : he was the Sieur 
de Lamotte, styling himself Comte de Lamotte. Who 
doubts it ? He praises ^ my feeble charms ; ' expresses a 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 103 

wish to ^ pay his addresses to me.' I, being a lone spin- 
ster, know not what to say ; think it best in the mean 
while to retire. Vain precaution ! I see him all on a 
sudden appear in my apartment ! " 

On his " ninth visit " (for he was always civility itself), 5 
he talks of introducing a great Court-lady, by whose 
means I may even do her Majesty some little secret-ser- 
vice, — the reward of which will be unspeakable. In 
the dusk of the evening, silks mysteriously rustle : enter 
the creative Dramaturgist, Dame styled Countess de 10 
Lamotte ; and so — the too intrusive scientific reader 
has now, for his punishment, got on the wrong-side of 
that loveliest Transparency ; finds nothing but grease- 
pots, and vapor of expiring wicks ! 

The Demoiselle Gay d'Oliva may once more sit, or 15 
stand, in the Palais-Royal, with such custom as will 
come. In due time, she shall again, but with breath of 
Terror, be blown upon ; and blown out of France to 
Brussels. 



104 THOMAS CARLYLE. 



CHAPTER XI. 



THE NECKLACE IS SOLD. 



Autumn, with its gray moaning winds and coating of 
red strewn leaves, invites Courtiers to enjoy the charms 
of Nature ; and all business of moment stands still. 
Countess de Lamotte, while everything is so stagnant, 
5 and even Boehmer has locked up his Necklace and his 
hopes for the season, can drive, with her Count and 
Euryalus Villette, down to native Bar-sur-Aube ; and 
there (in virtue of a Queen's bounty) show the envious 
a Scion-of-royalty re-grafted ; and make them yellower 

10 looking on it. A well-varnished chariot, with the Arms 
of Yalois duly painted in bend-sinister ; a house gallantly 
furnished, bodies gallantly attired, — secure them the 
favorablest reception from all manner of men. The very 
Due de Penthievre (Egalite's father-in-law) welcomes our 

15 Lamotte, with that urbanity characteristic of his high 
station and the old school. Worth, indeed, makes the 
man, or woman; but "leather" of gig-straps, and "pru- 
nella " of gig-lining, first makes it go. 

The great creative Dramaturgist has thus let down her 

20 drop-scene ; and only, with a Letter or two to Saverne, 
or even a visit thither (for it is but a day's drive from 
Bar), keeps up a due modicum of intermediate instru- 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 105 

mental music. She needs some pause, in good sooth, to 
collect herself a little ; for the last act and grand Catas- 
trophe is at hand. Two fixed-ideas, Cardinal's and Jew- 
eller's, a negative and a positive, have felt each other ; 
stimulated now by new hope, are rapidly revolving round 5 
each other, and approximating ; like two flames, are 
stretching-out long fire-tongues to join and be one. 

Boehmer, on his side, is ready with the readiest ; as 
indeed he has been these four long years. The Countess, 
it is true, will have neither part nor lot in that foolish 10 
Cadeau of his, or in the whole foolish Necklace business : 
this she has, in plain words, and even not without as- 
perity, due to a bore of such magnitude, given him to 
know. From her, nevertheless, by cunning inference, 
and the merest accident in the world, the sly Joaillier- 15 
Bijoutier has gleaned thus much, that Monseigneur de 
Eohan is the man. — Enough ! Enough ! Madame shall 
be no more troubled. Eest there, in hope, thou Neck- 
lace of the Devil; but, Monseigneur, be thy return 
speedy ! 20 

Alas, the man lives not that would be speedier than 
Monseigneur, if he durst. But as yet no gilt Autograph 
invites him, permits him ; the few gilt Autographs are 
all negatory, procrastinating. Cabals of Court ; forever 
cabals ! Nay if it be not for some Necklace, or other such 25 
crotchet or necessity, who knows but he may never be 
recalled (so fickle is womankind) ; but forgotten, and 
left to rot here, like his Rose, into pot-pourri ? Our tute- 
lary Countess, too, is shyer in this matter than we ever 



106 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

saw her. Nevertheless, by intense skilful cross-ques- 
tioning, he has extorted somewhat ; sees partly how it 
stands. The Queen's Majesty will have her Necklace ; 
for when, in such case, had not woman her way ? The 

5 Queen's Majesty can even pay for it — by instalments ; 
but then the stingy husband ! Once for all, she will not 
be seen in the business. Now, therefore. Were it, or 
were it not, permissible to mortal to transact it secretly 
in her stead ? That is the question. If to mortal, then 

10 to Monseigneur. Our Countess has even ventured to 
hint afar off at Monseigneur (kind Countess !) in the 
proper quarter ; but his discretion in regard to money- 
matters is doubted. Discretion ? And I on the Prome- 
nade de la Rose ? — Explode not, Eminence ! Trust 

15 will spring of trial ; thy hour is coming. 

The Lamottes meanwhile have left their farewell card 
with all the respectable classes of Bar-sur-Aube ; our 
Dramaturgist stands again behind the scenes at Paris. 
How is it, Monseigneur, that she is still so shy with 

20 thee, in this matter of the Necklace ; that she leaves 
the love-lorn Latmian shepherd to droop, here in lone 
Saverne, like weeping-ash, in naked winter, on his 
Promenade of the Rose, with vague commonplace 
responses that his hour is coming? — By Heaven and 

'25 Earth ! at last, in late January, it is come. Behold it, 
this new gilt Autograph : '^ To Paris, on a small business 
of delicacy, which our Countess will explain," — which 
I already know ! To Paris ! Horses ; postilions ; beef- 
eaters ! — And so his resuscitated Eminence, all wrapt in 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 107 

furs, in the pleasantest frost (Abbe Georgel says, un 
heaiifroid de Janvier), over clear-jingling highway rolls 
rapidly, — borne on the bosom of Dreams. 

Dame de Lamotte, has the enchanted Diamond fruit 
ripened, then ? Hast thou gwe7i it the little shake, big 5 
with unutterable fate? — I? can the Dame justly 
retort : Who saw me in it ? — The reader, therefore, 
has still Three scenic Exhibitions to look at, by our 
great Dramaturgist ; then the Fourth and last, — by 
another Author. 10 

To us, reflecting how oftenest the true moving force 
in human things works hidden underground, it seems 
small marvel that this month of January 1785, wherein 
our Countess so little courts the eye of the vulgar 
historian, should nevertheless have been the busiest of 16 
all for her ; especially the latter half thereof. 

Wisely eschewing matters of Business (which she 
could never in her life understand), our Countess will 
personally take no charge of that bargain-making ; leaves 
it all to her Majesty and the gilt Autographs. Assidu- 20 
ous Boehmer nevertheless is in frequent close confer- 
ence with Monseigneur : the Paris Palais-de-Strasbourg, 
shut to the rest of men, sees the Joaillier-Bijoutier, with 
eager official aspect, come and go. The grand difficulty 
is — must we say it? — her Majesty's wilful whim si- 25 
cality, unacquaintance with Business. She positively 
will not write a gilt Autograph, authorizing his Eminence 
to make the bargain; but writes rather, in a pettish 
manner, that the thing is of no consequence, and can be 



108 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

given up ! Thus must the poor Countess dash to and 
fro, like a weaver's shuttle, between Paris and Versailles ; 
wear her horses and nerves to pieces ; nay, sometimes 
in the hottest haste, wait many hours within call of the 
5 Palace, considering what can be done (with none but 
Villette to bear her company), — till the Queen's whim 
pass. 

At length, after furious-driving and conferences enough, 
on the 29th of January, a middle course is hit on. Cau- 

10 tious Boehmer shall write out, on finest paper, his 
terms; which are really rather fair: Sixteen hundred 
thousand livres ; to be paid in five equal instalments ; 
the first this day six months ; the other four from three 
months to three months ; this 'is what Court-Jewellers 

15 Boehmer and Bassange, on the one part, and Prince 
Cardinal Commendator Louis de Kohan, on the other 
part, will stand to ; witness their hands. Which written 
sheet of finest paper our poor Countess must again take 
charge of, again dash-off with to Versailles ; and there- 

20 from, after trouble unspeakable (shared in only by the 
faithful Villette, of Eascaldom), return with it, bearing 
this most precious marginal note, ^^ Bo7i — Marie- Antoi- 
nette de France,^^ in the Autograph-hand ! Happy Car- 
dinal ! this thou shalt keep in the innermost of all thy 

25 repositories. Boehmer meanwhile, secret as Death, shall 
tell no man that he has sold his Necklace ; or if much 
pressed for an actual sight of the same, confess that it 
is sold to the Pavorite Sultana of the Grand Turk for 
the time being. 

Thus, then, do the smoking Lamotte horses at length 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 109 

get rubbed down, and feel the taste of oats, after mid- 
night ; the Lamotte Countess can also gradually sink 
into needful slumber, perhaps not unbroken by dreams. 
On the morrow the bargain shall be concluded ; next 
day the~ Necklace be delivered, on Monseigneur's receipt. 5 

Will the reader, therefore, be pleased to glance at the 
following two Life-Pictures, Eeal-Phantasmagories, or 
whatever we may call them ; they are the two first of 
those Three scenic real-poetic exhibitions, brought about 
by our Dramaturgist : short Exhibitions, but essential 10 
ones. 



110 THOMAS CARLYLE. 



CHAPTEE XII. 

THE NECKLACE VANISHES. 

It is the first day of February ; that grand day of 
Delivery. The Sieur Boehmer is in the Court of the 
Palais de Strasbourg ; his look mysterious-official, and 
though much emaciated, radiant with enthusiasm. The 
5 Seine has missed him ; though lean, he will fatten again, 
and live through new enterprises. 

Singular, were we not used to it : the name " Boehmer," 
as it passes upwards and inwards, lowers all halberts 
of Heyducs in perpendicular rows : the historical eye 

10 beholds him, bowing low, with plenteous smiles, in 
the plush Saloon of Audience. Will it please Mon- 
seigneur, then, to do the ne-plus-ultra of Necklaces the 
honor of looking at it ? A piece of Art, which the 
Universe cannot parallel, shall be parted with (Neces- 

15 sity compels Court-Jewellers) at that ruinously low sum. 
They, the Court-Jewellers, shall have much ado to 
weather it; but their work, at least, will find a fit 
Wearer, and go down to juster posterity. Monseigneur 
will merely have the condescension to sign this Eeceipt 

20 of Delivery : all the rest, her Highness the Sultana of 
the Sublime Porte has settled it. — Here the Court- 
Jeweller, with his joyous though now much-emaciated 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. Ill 

face, ventures on a faint knowing smile ; to which, in the 
lofty dissolute-serene of Monseigneur's, some twinkle of 
permission could not but respond. — This is the First 
of those Three real-poetic Exhibitions, brought about by 
our Dramaturgist, — with perfect success. 5 

It was said, long afterwards, that Monseigneur should 
have known, and even that Boehmer should have known, 
her Highness the Sultana's marginal note, her ''Right — 
Marie Antoinette of France,^^ to be a forgery and mock- 
ery : the " of France " was fatal to it. Easy talking, easy lo 
criticising ! But how are two enchanted men to know ; 
two men with a fixed-idea each, a negative and a pos- 
itive, rushing together to neutralize each other in rap- 
ture ? — Enough, Monseigneur has the ne-plus-uUra of 
Necklaces, conquered by man's valor and woman's wit ; 15 
and rolls off with it, in mysterious speed, to Versailles, 
— triumphant as a Jason with his Golden Fleece. 

The Second grand scenic Exhibition by our Drama- 
turgic Countess occurs in her own apartment at Ver- 
sailles, so early as the following night. It is a commo- 20 
dious apartment, with alcove ; and the alcov^e has a glass 
door. Monseigneur enters, — with a follower bearing a 
mysterious Casket, who carefully deposits it, and then 
respectfully withdraws. It is the Necklace itself in all 
its glory ! Our tutelary Countess, and Monseigneur, and 25 
we, can at leisure admire the queenly Talisman; con- 
gratulate ourselves that the painful conquest of it is 
achieved. 

But, hist ! A knock, mild but decisive, as from one 
knocking with authority ! Monseigneur and we retire 



112 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

to our alcove ; there from behind our glass screen, ob- 
serve what passes. Who comes ? The door flung open : 
de par la Beine ! Behold him, Monseigneur : he enters 
with grave, respectful, yet official air ; worthy Monsieur 

5 Queen's-valet Lesclaux, the same who escorted our 
tutelary Countess, that moonlight night, from the back 
apartments of Versailles. Said we not, thou wouldst 
see him once more ? — Methinks, again, spite of his 
Queen' s-unif or m, he has much the' features of Villette of 

10 Eascaldom ! — Rascaldom or Valetdom (for to the blind 
all colors are the same), he has, with his grave, respect- 
ful, yet official air, received the Casket, and its priceless 
contents ; with fit injunction, with fit engagements ; and 
retires bowing low. 

15 Thus softly, silently, like a very Dream, flits away our 
solid Necklace — through the Horn Gate of Dreams ! 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 113 



CHAPTEE XIII. 

SCENE THIRD \ BY DAME DE LAMOTTE. 

Kow too, in these same days (as he can afterwards 
prove by affidavit of Landlords) arrives Count Cagliostro 
himself, from Lyons ! No longer by predictions in cipher ; 
but by his living voice, often in rapt communion with 
the unseen world, " with Caraffe and four candles ; '' by 5 
his greasy prophetic bull-dog face, said to be the " most 
perfect quack-face of the eighteenth century," can we 
assure ourselves that all is well; that all will turn "to 
the glor}/ of Monseigneur, to the good of France, and 
of mankind," and of Egyptian masonry. " Tokay flows 10 
like water ; " our charming Countess, with her piquancy 
of face, is sprightlier than ever ; enlivens with the 
brightest sallies, with the adroitest flatteries to all, 
those suppers of the gods. Nights, O Suppers — too 
good to last ! Nay, now also occurs another and Third 15 
scenic Exhibition, fitted by its radiance to dispel from 
Monseigneur's soul the last trace of care. 

Why the Queen does not, even yet, openly receive me 
at Court ? Patience, Monseigneur ! Thou little know- 
est those too intricate cabals ; and how she still but 20 
works at them silently, with royal suppressed fury, like 
a royal lioness only deliveririg herself from the hunter's 



114 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

toils. Meanwhile, is not thy work done ? The Neck- 
lace, she rejoices over it ; beholds, many times in secret, 
her Juno-neck mirrored back the lovelier for it, — as our 
tutelar Countess can testify. Come to-morrow to the 

5 CEil-de-Bceuf ; there see with eyes, in high noon, as al- 
ready in deep midnight thou hast seen, whether in her 
royal heart there were delay. 

Let us stand, then, with Monseigneur, in that (Eil-de- 
Boeuf, in the Versailles Palace Gallery ; for all well- 

10 dressed persons are admitted : there the Loveliest, in 
pomp of royalty, will walk to mass. The world is all 
in pelisses and winter furs ; cheerful, clear, — with 
hoses tending to blue. A lively many-voiced hum plays 
fitful, hither and thither : of sledge parties and Court 

15 parties ; frosty state of the weather ; stability of M. de 
Calonne; Majesty's looks yesterday; — such hum as 
always, in these sacred Court-spaces, since Louis le 
Grand made and consecrated them, has, with more or 
less impetuosity, agitated our common Atmosphere. 

20 Ah, through that long high Gallery what figures 
have passed — and vanished ! Louvois, — with the Great 
King, flashing fire-glances on the fugitive ; in his red 
right hand a pair of tongs, which pious Maintenon 
hardly holds back : Louvois, where art thou ? Ye 

25 Marechaux de France ? Ye unmentionable-women of 
past generations ? Here also was it that rolled and 
rushed the "sound, absolutely like thunder," of Cour- 
tier hosts; in that dark hour when the signal-light in 
Louis the Fifteenth's chamber-window was blown out ; 
and his ghastly infectious Corpse lay lone, forsaken on 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 115 

its tumbled death-lair, "in the hands of some poor 
women;" and the Courtier-hosts rushed from the 
Deep-fallen to hail the New-risen ! These too rushed, 
and passed; and their "sound, absolutely like thun- 
der," became silence. Figures ? Men ? They are fast- 5 
fleeting Shadows ; fast chasing each other : it is not a 
Palace, but a Caravansera. — Monseigneur (with thy too 
much Tokay overnight) ! cease puzzling : here thou art, 
this blessed February day : — the Peerless, will she turn 
lightly that high head of hers, and glance aside into the 10 
CEil-de-Boeuf, in passing ? Please Heaven, she will. To 
our tutelary Countess, at least, she promised it ; though, 
alas, so fickle is womankind ! — 

Hark ! Clang of opening doors ! She issues, like the 
Moon in silver brightness, down the Eastern steeps. 15 
La Heine vient ! What a figure ! I (with the aid of 
glasses) discern her. Fairest, Peerless ! Let the hum 
of minor discoursing hush itself wholly ; and only one 
successive rolling peal of Vive la Heine, like the mov- 
able radiance of a train of fire-works, irradiate her path. 20 
— Ye Immortals! She does, she beckons, turns her 
head this way! — "Does she not?" says Countess de 
Lamotte. — Versailles, the (Eil-de-Boeuf, and all men 
and things are drowned in a Sea of Light ; Monseigneur 
and that high beckoning Head are alone, with each other 25 
in the Universe. 

Eminence, what a beatific vision ! Enjoy it, blest 
as the gods ; ruminate and re-enjoy it, with full soul : it 
is the last provided for thee. Too soon, in the course of 



116 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

these six months, shall thy beatific vision, like Mirza's 
vision, gradually melt away ; and only oxen and sheep 
be grazing in its place ; — and thou, as a doomed Nebu- 
chadnezzar, be grazing with them. 
5 " Does she not ? " said the Countess de Lamotte. That 
it is a habit of hers ; that hardly a day passes without 
her doing it : this the Countess de Lamotte did not say. 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 117 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE NECKLACE CANNOT BE PAID. 

Here, then, the specially Dramaturgic labors of 
Countess de Lamotte may be said to terminate. The 
rest of her life is Histrionic merely, or Histrionic and " 
Critical ; as, indeed, what had all the former part of it 
been but a Hypocy^isia, a more or less correct Playing of 5 
Parts? ^^Mrs. Pacing-both-ways " (as old Bunyan 
said), what a talent hadst thou ! No Proteus ever took 
so many shapes, no Chameleon so often changed color. 
One thing thou wert to Mon seigneur ; another thing to 
Cagliostro, and Villette of Eascaldom ; a third thing 10 
to the World, in printed Memoir es ; a fourth thing to 
Philippe Egalite : all things to all men ! 

Let her, however, we say, but manage now to act her 
own parts, with proper Histrionic illusion ; and, by 
Critical glosses, give her past Dramaturgy the fit aspect, 15 
to Monseigneur and others : this henceforth, and not 
new Dramaturgy, includes her whole task. Dramatic 
Scenes, in plenty, will follow of themselves ; especially 
that Fourth and final Scene, spoken of above as by 
another Author, — by Destiny itself. 20 

For in the Lamotte Theatre, so different from our 
common Pasteboard one, the Play goes on, even when 



118 THOMAS CARLYLE, 

the Machinist has left it. Strange enough : those Air- 
images, which from her Magic-lantern she hung out on 
the empty bosom of Night, have clutched hold of this 
solid-seeming World (which some call the Material 
5 World, as if that made it more a Real one), and will 
tumble hither and thither the solidest masses there. 
Yes, reader, so goes it here below. What thou callest 
a Brain-web, or mere illusive Nothing, is it not a web 
of the Brain ; of the Spirit which inhabits the Brain ; 

10 and which, in this World (rather, as I think, to be 
named the Spiritual one), very naturally moves and 
tumbles hither and thither all things it meets with, in 
Heaven or in Earth ? — So too, the Necklace, though we 
saw it vanish through the Horn Gate of Dreams, and in 

15 my opinion man shall never more behold it, — yet its 
activity ceases not, nor will. Eor no Act of a man, no 
Thing (how much less the man himself !) is extinguished 
when it disappears : through considerable times it still 
visibly works, though done and vanished ; I have known 

20 a done thing work visibly Three Thousand Years and 
more: invisibly, unrecognized, all done things work 
through endless times and years. Such a Hypermagical 
is this our poor old Eeal world ; which some take upon 
them to pronounce effete, prosaic ! Friend, it is thyself 

25 that art all withered up into effete Prose, dead as ashes : 
know this (I advise thee) ; and seek passionately, with 
a passion little short of desperation, to have it remedied. 
Meanwhile, what will the feeling heart think to learn 
that Monseigneur de Rohan, as we prophesied, again 
experiences the fickleness of a Court ; that, notwith- 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 119 

standing the beatific visions, at noon and midnight, the 
Queen's Majesty, with the light ingratitude of her sex, 
flies off at a tangent ; and, far from ousting his detested 
and detesting rival, Minister Breteuil, and openly 
delighting to honor Monseigneur, will hardly vouch- 5 
safe him a few gilt Autographs, and those few of 
the most capricious, suspicious, soul-confusing tenor ? 
What terrifico-absurd explosions, which scarcely Cagli- 
ostro, with Caraffe and four candles, can still; how 
many deep-weighed Humble Petitions, Explanations, lo 
Expostulations, penned with fervidest eloquence, with 
craftiest diplomacy, — all delivered by our tutelar 
Countess : in vain ! — Cardinal, with what a huge iron 
mace, like Guy of Warwick's, thou smitest Phantasms in 
two, which close again, take shape again ; and only 15 
thrashest the air ! 

One comfort, however, is that the Queen's Majesty has 
committed herself. The Rose of Trianon, and what may 
pertain thereto, lies it not here ? That '^ Right — Marie 
Antoinette of France,^' too; and the 30th of July, first- 20 
instalment-day, coming ? She shall be brought to terms, 
good Eminence ! Order horses and beef-eaters for 
Saverne ; there, ceasing all written or oral communica- 
tion, starve her into capitulating. It is the bright May 
month : his Eminence again somnambulates the Prome- 25 
nade de la Rose ; but now with grim dry eyes ; and, from 
time to time, terrifically stamping. 

But who is this that I see mounted on costliest horse and 
horse-gear ; betting at Newmarket Eaces ; though he can 
speak no English word, and only some Chevalier O'Niel, 



120 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

some Capucliin Macdermot, from Bar-sur-Aube, interprets 
his French into the dialect of the Sister Island ? Few days 
ago I observed him walking in Fleet-street, thoughtfully 
through Temple-Bar ; — in deep treaty with Jeweller 

5 Jeffreys, with Jeweller Grey, for the sale of Diamonds : 
such a lot as one may boast of. A tall handsome man ; 
with ex-military whiskers ; with a look of troubled 
gayety, and rascalism : you think it is the Sieur self- 
styled Count de Lamotte ; nay the man himself con- 

10 fesses it ! The Diamonds were a present to his Count- 
ess, — from the still-bountiful Queen. 

Villette too, has he completed his sales at Amsterdam ? 
Him I shall by and by behold; not betting at New- 
market, but drinking wine and ardent spirits in the 

15 Taverns of Geneva. Ill-gotten wealth endures not ; 
Rascaldom has no strong-box. Countess de Lamotte, 
for what a set of cormorant scoundrels hast thou 
labored, art thou still laboring ! 

Still laboring, we may say : for as the fatal 30th of 

20 July approaches, what is to be looked for but uni- 
versal Earthquake ; Mud-explosion that will blot-out the 
face of Nature ? Methinks, stood I in thy pattens. Dame 
de Lamotte, I would cut and run. — " Run ! " exclaims 
she, with a toss of indignant astonishment: "Calum- 

25 niated Innocence run ? " For it is singular how in 
some minds, which are mere bottomless " chaotic whirl- 
pools of gilt shreds," there is no deliberate Lying what- 
ever; and nothing is either believed or disbelieved, 
but only (with some transient suitable Histrionic emo- 
tion) spoken and heard. 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 121 

Had Dame de Lamotte a certain greatness of character, 
then; at least, a strength of transcendent audacity, 
amounting to the bastard-heroic ? Great, indubitably 
great, is her Dramaturgic and Histrionic talent ; but as 
for the rest, one must answer, with reluctance, No. Mrs. 5 
Facing-both-ways is a " Spark of vehement Life," but 
the farthest in the world from a brave woman : she did 
not, in any case, show the bravery of a woman ; did, in 
many cases, show the mere screaming trepidation of 
one. Her grand quality is rather to be reckoned nega- 10 
tive : the " untamableness " as of a fly ; the " wax-cloth 
dress " from which so much ran down like water. Small 
sparrows, as I learn, have been trained to fire cannon ; 
but would make poor Artillery Officers in a Waterloo. 
Thou dost not call that Cork a strong swimmer ? 15 
Which nevertheless shoots, without hurt, the Falls of 
Niagara; defies the thunderbolt itself to sink it, for 
more than a moment. Without intellect, imagination, 
power of attention, or any spiritual faculty, how brave 
were one, — with fit motive for it, such as hunger ! 20 
How much might one dare, by the simplest of methods, 
by not thinking of it, not knowing it ! — Besides, is not 
Cagliostro, foolish blustering Quack, still here ? No 
scapegoat had ever broader back. The Cardinal too, has 
he not money ? Queen's Majesty, even in effigy, shall 25 
not be insulted; the Soubises, De Marsans, and high 
and puissant Cousins, must huddle the matter up : Ca- 
lumniated Innocence, in the most universal of Earth- 
quakes, will find some crevice to whisk through, as she 
has so often done. 



122 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

But all this while how fares it with his Eminence, 
left somnambulating the Promenade de la Rose ; and at 
times truculently stamping ? Alas, ill, and ever worse. 
The starving method, singular as it may seem, brings no 

5 capitulation ; brings only, after a month's waiting, our 
tutelary Countess, with a gilt Autograph, indeed, and 
^^ all wrapt in silk threads, sealed where they cross," — 
but which we read with curses. 

We must back again to Paris ; there pen new Expos- 

10 tulations ; which our unwearied Countess will take charge 
of, but, alas, can get no answer to. However, is not the 
30th of July coming ? — Behold, on the 19th of that 
month, the shortest, most careless of Autographs : with 
some fifteen hundred pounds of real money in it, to pay 

15 the — interest of the first instalment ; the principal, of 
some thirty thousand, not being at the moment perfectly'' 
convenient ! Hungry Boehmer makes large eyes at this 
proposal ; will accept the money, but only as part of 
payment ; the man is positive : a Court of Justice, if no 

20 other means, shall get him the remainder. What now 
is to be done ? 

Farmer-general Monsieur Saint-James, Cagliostro's 
disciple, and wet with Tokay, will cheerfully advance 
the sum needed — for her Majesty's sake ; thinks, how- 

25 ever (with all his Tokay), it were good to speak with her 
Majesty first. — I observe, meanwhile, the distracted 
hungry Boehmer driven hither and thither, not by his 
fixed-idea ; alas, no, but by the far more frightful ghost 
thereof, — since no payment is forthcoming. He stands, 
one day, speaking with a Queen's waiting-woman 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 123 

(Madame Campan herself), in " a thunder-shower, which 
neither of them notice," — so thunderstruck are they. 
What weather-symptoms for his Eminence ! 

The 30th of July has come, but no money ; the 30th 
is gone, but no money. Eminence, what a grim fare- 5 
well of July is this of 1785 ! The last July went out 
with airs from Heaven, and Trianon Eoses. These 
August days, are they not worse than dog's days ; worthy 
to be blotted out from all Almanacs ? Boehmer and 
Bassange thou canst still see ; but only '^ return from lo 
them swearing." Nay, what new misery is this ? Our 
tutelary Histrionic Countess enters, distraction in her 
eyes ; she has just been at Versailles ; the Queen's Ma- 
jesty, with a levity of caprice which we dare not trust 
ourselves to characterize, declares plainly that she will 13 
deny ever having got the Necklace ; ever having had, 
with his Eminence, any transaction whatsoever ! — Mud- 
explosion without parallel in volcanic annals. — The 
Palais de Strasbourg appears to be beset with spies ; the 
Lamottes, for the Count too is here, are packing-up for 20 
Bar-sur-Aube. The Sieur Boehmer, has he fallen insane ? 
Or into communication with Minister Breteuil ? — 

And so, distractedly and distractively, to the sound of 
all Discords in Nature, opens that Fourth, final Scenic 
Exhibition, composed by Destiny. 25 



124 THOMAS CARLYLE. 



CHAPTER XV. 

SCENE FOURTH I BY DESTINY. 

It is Assumption-day, the 15tli of August. Don thy 
pontificalia, Grand- Almoner ; crush down these hideous 
temporalities out of sight. In any case, smooth thy 
countenance into some sort of lofty-dissolute serene : 

5 thou hast a thing they call worshipping God to enact, 
thyself the first actor. 

The Grand- Almoner has done it. He is in Versailles 
(Eil-de-Boeuf Gallery ; where male and female Peerage, 
and all Noble France in gala various and glorious as the 

10 rainbow, waits only the signal to begin worshipping : on 
the serene of his lofty-dissolute countenance there can 
nothing be read. By Heaven ! he is sent for to the 
Poyal Apartment ! 

He returns with the old lofty-dissolute look, inscruta- 

15 bly serene : has his turn for favor actually come, then ? 
Those fifteen long years of soul's travail are to be re- 
warded by a birth ? — Monsieur le Baron de Breteuil 
issues ; great in his pride of place, in this the crowning 
moment of his life. With one radiant glance, Breteuil 

20 summons the Officer on Guard ; with another, fixes Mon- 
seigneur: ^^ De par le Roi, Monseigneur : you are ar- 
rested ! At yow risk. Officer ! " — Curtains as of pitch- 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 125 

black whirlwind envelop Monseigneur ; w^hirl off with, 
him, — to outer darkness. Versailles Gallery explodes 
aghast ; as if Guy Fawkes's Plot had hurst under it. 
"The Queen's Majesty was weeping," whisper some. 
There will be no Assumption-service ; or such a one as 5 
was never celebrated since Assumption came in fashion. 

Europe, then, shall ring with it from side to side ! — 
But why rides that Heyduc as if all the Devils drove 
him ? It is Monseigneur's Heyduc : Monseigneur spoke 
three words in German to him, at the door of his Yer- lO 
sailles Hotel ; even handed him a slip of writing, which, 
with borrowed Pencil, " in his red square cap," he had 
managed to prepare on the way thither. To Paris ! To 
the Palais-Cardinal! The horse dies on reaching the 
stable ; the Heyduc swoons on reaching the cabinet : 15 
but his slip of writing fell from his hand ; and I (says 
the Abbe Georgel) was there. The red Portfolio, con- 
taining all the gilt Autographs, is burnt utterly, with 
much else, before Breteuil can arrive for apposition of 
the seals ! — Whereby Europe, in ringing from side to 20 
side, must worry itself with guessing : and at this hour 
on this paper, sees the matter in such an interesting 
clear-obscure. 

Soon Count Cagliostro and his Seraphic Countess go 
to join Monseigneur, in State Prison. In few days, fol- 25 
lows Dame de Lamotte, from Bar-sur-Aube ; Demoiselle 
d'Oliva by-and-by, from Brussels ; Yillette-de-K^taux, 
from his Swiss retirement, in the taverns of Geneva* 
The Bastille opens its iron bosom to them all. 



126 THOMAS CARLYLE. 



CHAPTER LAST. 

MISSA EST. 

Thus, then, tlie Diamond Necklace having, on the one 
hand, vanished through the Horn Gate of Dreams, and 
so, under the pincers of Nisus Lamotte and Euryalus 
Villette, lost its sublunary individuality and being ; and, 

5 on the other hand, all that trafficked in it, sitting now 
safe under lock and key, that justice may take cogni- 
zance of them, — our engagement in regard to the mat- 
ter is on the point of terminating. That extraordinary 
" Proces du Collier, Necklace Trial,'' spinning itself 

10 through Nine other ever-memorable Months, to the 
astonishment of the hundred and eighty-seven assem- 
bled Parlementiers, and of all Quidnuncs, Journalists, 
Anecdotists, Satirists, in both Hemispheres, is. in every 
sense, a " Celebrated Trial," and belongs to Publishers of 

15 such. How, by innumerable confrontations and expis- 
catory questions, through entanglements, doublings and 
windings that fatigue eye and soul, this most involute 
of Lies is finally winded off to the scandalous-ridiculous 
cinder-heart of it, let others relate. 

20 Meanwhile, during these Nine ever-memorable Months, 
till they terminate late at night precisely with the May 
of 1786, how many fugitive leaves, quizzical, imagina- 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 127 

tive, or at least menclaciouSj were flying about in News- 
papers ; or stitched together as Pamphlets ; and what 
heaps of others were left creeping in Manuscript, we 
shall not say ; — having, indeed, no complete Collection 
of them, and what is more to the purpose, little to do 5 
with such Collection. Nevertheless, searching for some 
fit Capital of the composite order, to adorn adequately 
the now finished singular Pillar of our Narrative, what 
can suit us better than the following, so far as we know, 
yet unedited, 10 

Occasional Discourse, by Count Alessandro Cagliostro, 
Thauniaturgist, Prophet and Arch-Quack ; delivered in 
the Bastille : Year of Lucifer, 5789 ; of the Mahometan 
Hegira from Mecca, 1201 ; of the Cagliostric Hegira 
from Palermo, 24 ; of the Vulgar Era, 1785. 15 

" Fellow Scoundrels, — An unspeakable Intrigue, spun 
from the soul of that Circe-Megsera, by our voluntary or 
involuntary help, has assembled us all, if not under one 
roof-tree, yet within one grim iron-bound ring-wall. For 
an appointed number of months, in the ever-rolling flow 20 
of Time, we, being gathered from the four winds, did 
by Destiny work together in body corporate ; and joint 
laborers in a Transaction already famed over the Globe, 
obtain unity of Name, like the Argonauts of old, as 
Conquerors of the Diamond Necklace. Erelong it is done 25 
(for ring-walls hold not captive the free Scoundrel for- 
ever) ; and we disperse again, over wide terrestrial 
Space ; some of us, it may be, over the very marches 
of Space. Oilr Act hangs indissoluble together ; floats 



128 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

wondrous in the older and older memory of men : while 
ive the little band of Scoundrels, who saw each other, 
now hover so far asunder, to see each other no more, if 
not once more only on the universal Doomsday, the Last 
5 of the Days ! 

" In such interesting moments, while we stand within 
the verge of parting, and have not yet parted, niethinks 
it were well here, in these sequestered Spaces, to insti- 
tute a few general reflections. Me, as a public speaker, 

10 the Spirit of Masonry, of Philosophy, and Philanthropy, 
and even of Prophecy, blowing mysterious from the 
Land of Dreams, impels to do it. Give ear, Fellow 
Scoundrels, to what the Spirit utters; treasure it in 
your hearts, practise it in your lives. 

15 " Sitting here, penned-up in this which, with a slight 
metaphor, I call the Central Cloaca of Nature, where a 
tyrannical De Launay can forbid the bodily eye free 
vision, you with the mental eye see but the better. 
This Central Cloaca, is it not rather a Heart, into which, 

20 from all regions, mysterious conduits introduce and 
forcibly inject whatsoever is choicest in the Scoundrel- 
ism of the Earth ; there to be absorbed, or again (by the 
other auricle) ejected into new circulation ? Let the eye 
of the mind run along this immeasurable venous-arterial 

25 system ; and astound itself with the magnificent extent 
of Scoundreldom ; the deep, I may say, unfathomable, 
significance of Scoundrelism. 

^^ Yes, brethren, wide as the sun's range is our Empire, 
wider than old Kome's in its palmiest era. I have in 
my time been far ; in frozen Muscovy, in hot Calabria, 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. l29 

east, west, wheresoever the sky overarches civilized 
man : and never hitherto saw I myself an alien ; out of 
Scoundreldom I never was. Is it not even said, from 
of old, by the opposite party : ^ All men are liars ' ? Do 
they not (and this nowise ^in haste') whimperingly talk 5 
of ' one just person ' (as they call him),-* and of the re- 
maining thousand save one that take part with us ? So 
decided is our majority." — (Applause.) 

'' Of the Scarleb Woman, — yes, Monseigneur, without 
offence, — of the Scarlet Woman that sits on Seven Hills, lo 
and her Black Jesuit Militia, out foraging from Pole to 
Pole, I speak not ; for the story is too trite : nay, the 
Militia itself, as I see, begins to be disbanded, and inval- 
ided, for a second treachery ; treachery to herself ! 
Nor yet of Governments ; for a like reason. Ambassa- 15 
dors, said an English punster, lie abroad for their 
masters. Their masters, we answer, lie at home for 
themselves. Not of all this, nor of Courtship with its 
Lovers'-vows, nor Courtiership, nor Attorneyism, nor 
Public Oratory, and Selling by Auction, do I speak : I 20 
simply ask the gainsayer, Which is the particular trade, 
profession, mystery, calling, or pursuit of the Sons of 
Adam that they successfully manage in the other way ? 
He cannot answer ! — No : Philosophy itself, both prac- 
tical and even speculative, has at length, after shame- 25 
fullest groping, stumbled on the plain conclusion that 
Sham is indispensable to Peality, as Lying to Living ; 
that without Lying the whole business of the world, 
from swaying of senates to selling of tapes, must ex- 
plode into anarchic discords, and so a speedy conclusion 
ensue. 



130 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

"But the grand problem, Fellow Scoundrels, as you 
well know, is the marrying of Truth and Sham ; so that 
they become one flesh, man and wife, and generate these 
three : Profit, Pudding, and Eespectability that always 

5 keeps her Gig. Wondrously, indeed, do Truth and 
Delusion play into one another ; Eeality rests on Dream. 
Truth is but the skin of the bottomless Untrue : and 
ever, from time to time, the Untrue sheds it ; is clear 
again ; and the superannuated True itself becomes a 

10 Fable. Thus do all hostile things crumble back into 
our Empire ; and of its increase there is no end. 

" brothers, to think of the Speech without meaning 
(which is mostly ours), and of the Speech with contrary 
meaning (which is wholly ours), manufactured by the 

15 organs of Mankind in one solar day ! Or call it a day 
of Jubilee, when public Dinners are given, and Dinner- 
orations are delivered : or say, a Neighboring Island in 
time of General Election ! ye immortal gods ! The 
mind is lost ; can only admire great Nature's plenteous- 

20 ness with a kind of sacred wonder. 

" For tell me. What is the chief end of man? ^To 
glorif}^ God,' said the old Christian Sect, now happily 
extinct. 'To eat and find, eatables by the readiest 
method,' answers sound Philosophy, discarding whims. 

25 If the method readier than this of persuasive-attraction 
is yet discovered, — point it out ! — Brethren, I said 
the old Christian Sect was happily extinct : as, indeed, 
in Eome itself, there goes the wonderfuUest traditionary 
Prophecy, of that Nazareth Christ coming back, and 
being crucified a second time there ; which truly I see 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 131 

tLpt in the least how he could fail to be. Nevertheless, 
that old Christian whim, of an actual living and ruling 
God, and some sacred covenant binding all men in Him, 
with much other mystic stuff, does, under new or old 
shape, linger with a few. From these few keep your- 5 
selves forever far ! They must even be left to their 
whim, which is not like to prove infectious. 

" But neither are we, my Fellow Scoundrels, without 
our Religion, our Worship ; which, like the oldest, and 
all true Worships, is one of Fear. The Christians have 10 
their Cross, the Moslem their Crescent : but have not we 
too our — Gallows ? Yes, infinitely terrible is the Gal- 
lows ; it bestrides with its patibulary fork the Pit of 
bottomless Terror. No Manicheans are we ; our God is 
One. Great, exceeding great, I say, is the Gallows ; of is 
old, even from the beginning, in this world ; knowing 
neither variableness nor decadence ; forever, forever, 
over the wreck of ages, and all civic and ecclesiastic 
convulsions, meal-mobs, revolutions, the Gallows with 
front serenely terrible towers aloft. Fellow Scoundrels, 20 
fear the Gallows and have no other fear ! This is the 
Law and the Prophets. Fear every emanation of the 
Gallows. And what is every buffet, with the fist, or 
even with the tongue, of one having authority, but some 
such emanation ? And what is Force of Public Opinion 25 
but the infinitude of such emanations, — rushing com- 
bined on you, like a mighty storm-wind ? Fear the Gal- 
lows, I say ! when, with its long black arm, it has 
clutched a man, what avail him all terrestrial things ? 
These pass away, with horrid nameless dinning in his 



132 TBOMAS CARLYLE. 

ears ; and tlie ill-starred Scoundrel pendulates between 
Heaven and Earth, a thing rejected of both.'^ — (Pro- 
found sensation.) 

"Such, so wide in compass, high, gallows-high in 

5 dignity, is the Scoundrel Empire ; and for depth, it is 
deeper than the Foundations of the World. For what 
was Creation itself wholly, according to the best Phi- 
losophers, but a Divulsion by the Time-Spirit (or Devil 
so called) ; a forceful Interruption, or breaking asunder, 

10 of the old Quiescence of Eternity ? It was Lucifer that 
fell, and made this lordly World arise. Deep ? It is 
bottomless-deep ; the very Thought, diving, bobs up 
from it baffled. Is not this that they call Vice of Ly- 
ing the Adam-Kadmon, or primeval Eude-Element, old 

15 as Chaos mother's-womb of Death and Hell ; whereon 
their thin film of Virtue, Truth and the like, poorly 
wavers — for a day ? All Virtue, what is it, even by 
their own showing, but Vice transformed, — that is, 
manufactured, rendered artificial? ^ Man's Vices are 

20 the roots from which his Virtues grow out and see the 
light,' says one : ^ Yes,' add I, ^ and thanklessly steal 
their nourishment!' Were it not for the nine hundred 
ninety and nine unacknowledged, perhaps martyred and 
calumniated Scoundrels, how were their single Just Per- 

25 son (with a murrain on him !) so much as possible ? — 
Oh, it is high, high : these things are too great for me ; 
Intellect, Imagination, flags her tired wings ; the soul 
lost, baffled " — 

— Here Dame de Lamotte tittered audibly, and mut- 
tered Coq-d'Inde, which, being interpreted into the Scot- 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 133 

tish tongue, signifies Btibhly-Jock ! The Arch-Quack, 
whose eyes were turned inwards as in rapt contempla- 
tion, started at the titter and mutter : his eyes flashed 
outwards with dilated pupil ; his nostrils opened wide ; 
his very hair seemed to stir in its long twisted pigtails 5 
(his fashion of curl) ; and as Indignation is said to make 
Poetry, it here made Prophecy, or what sounded as such. 
With terrible, working features, and gesticulation not 
recommended in any Book of Gesture, the Arch-Quack, 
in voice supernally discordant, like Lions worrying Bulls lO 
of Bashan, began : 

" Sniff not. Dame • de Lamotte ; tremble, thou foul 
Circe-Megaera ; thy day of desolation is at hand ! Be- 
hold ye the Sanhedrim of Judges, with their fanners of 
written Parchment, loud-rustling, as they winnow all 15 
her chaff and down-plumage, and she stands there naked 
and mean ? — Villette, Oliva, do ye blab secrets ? Ye have 
no pity of her extreme need ; she none of yours. Is thy 
light-giggling, untamable heart at last heavy ? Hark ye ! 
Shrieks of one cast out ; whom they brand on both shoul- 20 
ders with iron stamp ; the red-hot ^ V,^ thou Voleuse, hath 
it entered thy soul ? Weep, Circe de Lamotte ; wail 
there in truckle-bed, and hysterically gnash thy teeth : 
nay do, smother thyself in thy door-mat coverlid ; thou 
hast found thy mates; thou art in the Salpetriere ! — 25 
Weep, daughter of the high and puissant Sans-inexpres- 
sibles ! Buzz of Parisian Gossipry is about thee ; but 
not to help thee : no, to eat before thy time. What 
shall a King's Court do with thee, thou unclean thing, 
while thou yet livest ? Escape ! Plee to utmost coun- 



134 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

tries, hide there, if thou canst, thy mark of Cain! — 
In the Babylon of Fogland ! Ha ! is that my London ? 
See I Judas Iscariot Egalite ? Print, yea print abun- 
dantly the abominations of your two hearts : breath of 

5 rattlesnakes can bedim the steel mirror, but only for a 
time. — And there ! Ay, there at last ! Tumblest thou 
from the lofty leads, poverty-stricken, O thriftless 
daughter of the high and puissant, escaping bailiffs ? 
Descendest thou precipitate, in dead night, from win- 

10 dow in the third story ; hurled forth by Bacchanals, to 
whom thy shrill tongue had grown unbearable ? Yea, 
through the smoke of that new Babylon thou fallest 
headlong ; one long scream of screams makes night hid- 
eous; thou liest there, shattered like addle Qgg, ^nigh 

15 to the Temple of Flora ! ' O Lamotte, has thy Hypocri- 
sia ended, then ? Thy many characters were all acted. 
Here at last thou actest not, but art what thou seeraest : 
a mangled squelch of gore, confusion and abomination ; 
which men huddle underground, with no burial-stone. 

20 Thou gallows-carrion ! '' — 

— Here the prophet turned up his nose (the broadest 
of the eighteenth century), and opened wide his nostrils 
with such a greatness of disgust, that all the audience, 
even Lamotte herself, sympathetically imitated him. — 

25 " Dame de Lamotte ! Dame de Lamotte ! Now, when 
the circle of thy existence lies complete ; and my eye 
glances over these two score and three years that were 
lent thee, to do evil as thou couldst ; and I behold thee 
a bright-eyed little Tatterdemalion, begging and gather- 
ing sticks in the Bois de Boulogne ; and also at length 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 135 

a squelched Putrefaction, here on London pavements; 
with the head-dressings and hungerings, the gaddings 
and hysterical gigglings that came between, — what 
shall I say was the meaning of thee at all ? — 

" Villette-de-Eetaux ! Have the catchpoles trepanned 5 
thee, by sham of battle, in thy Tavern, from the sacred 
E-epublican soil ? It is thou that wert the hired Forger 
of Handwritings ? Thou wilt confess it ? Depart, un- 
whipt yet accursed. — Ha ! The dread Symbol of our 
Faith ? Swings aloft, on the Castle of St. Angelo, a 10 
Pendulous Mass, which I think I discern to be the body 
of Villette ! There let him end ; the sweet morsel of 
our Juggernaut. 

" Nay, weep not thou, disconsolate Oliva ; blear not thy 
bright blue eyes, daughter of the shady Garden ! Thee 15 
shall the Sanhedrim not harm : this Cloaca of Nature 
emits thee ; as notablest of unfortunate-females, thou 
shalt have choice of husbands not without capital ; and 
accept one. Know this ; for the vision of it is true. 

"But the Anointed Majesty whom ye profaned ? 20 
Blow, spirit of Egyptian Masonry, blow aside the thick 
curtains of Space ! Lo you, her eyes are red with their 
first tears of pure bitterness ; not with their last. Tire- 
woman Campan is choosing, from the Print-shops of the 
Quais, the reputed-best among the hundred likenesses 25 
of Circe de Lamotte : a Queen shall consider if the 
basest of women ever, by any accident, darkened daylight 
or candle-light for the highest. The Portrait answers : 
Never ! " — (Sensation in the audience.) 

" — Ha! What is this? Angels, Uriel, Anachiel, 



136 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

and ye other five ; Pentagon of Rejuvenescence ; Power 
that destroyedst Original Sin ; Earth, Heaven, and thou 
Outer Limbo which men name Hell ! Does the Empire 
OF Imposture waver? Burst there, in starry sheen, 

5 updarting. Light-rays from out its dark foundations; 
as it rocks and heaves, not in travail-throes, but in 
death-throes ? Yea, Light-rays, piercing, clear, that 
salute the Heavens, — lo, they kindle it ; their starry 
clearness becomes as red Hell-fire ! Imposture is in 

10 flames, Imposture is burnt up : one Red-sea of Fire, 
wild-billowing enwraps the World ; with its fire-tongue 
licks at the very stars. Thrones are hurled into it, and 
Dubois Mitres, and Prebendal Stalls that drop fatness, 
and — ha ! what see I ? — all the Gigs of Creation : all, 

15 all ! Woe is me ! Never since Pharaoh's Chariots, in 
the Red-sea of water, was there wreck of Wheel-vehicles 
like this in the sea of Fire. Desolate, as ashes, as 
gases, shall they wander in the wind. 

"Higher, higher yet flames the Fire-Sea; crackling 

20 with new dislocated timber ; hissing with leather and 
prunella. The metal Images are molten; the marble 
Images become mortar-lime; the stone Mountains 
sulkily explode. Respectability, with all her collected 
Gigs inflamed for funeral pyre, wailing, leaves the 

25 Earth : not to return save under new Avatar. Imposture, 
how it burns, through generations : how it is burnt up — 
for a time. The World is black ashes ; which, ah, when 
will they grow green ? The Images all run into amor- 
phous Corinthian brass ; all Dwellings of men destroyed ; 
the very mountains peeled and riven, the valleys black 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 137 

and dead : it is an empty World ! Woe to them that 

shall be born then ! A King, a Queen (ah me !) were 

hurled in; did rustle once; flew aloft, crackling, like 
paper-scroll. Oliva's Husband was hurled in ; Iscariot 
Egalite ; thou grim De Launay, with thy grim Bastille ; 5 
whole kindreds and peoples ; five millions of mutually 
destroying Men. For it is the End of the Dominion of 
Imposture (which is Darkness and opaque Firedamp) ; 
and the burning-up, with unquenchable fire, of all the 
Gigs that are in the Earth ! " — Here the Prophet 10 
paused, fetching a deep sigh ; and the Cardinal uttered 
a kind of faint, tremulous Hem ! 

"Mourn not, Monseigneur, spite of thy nephritic 
colic and many infirmities. For thee mercifully it was 
not unto death. Monseigneur (for thou hadst a touch 15 
of goodness), who would not weep over thee, if he also 
laughed? Behold! The not too judicious Historian, 
that long years hence, amid remotest wildernesses, 
writes thy Life, and names thee Mud-volcano ; even he 
shall reflect that it was thy Life this same ; thy only 20 
chance through whole Eternity ; which thou (poor 
gambler) hast expended so : and, even over his hard 
heart, a breath of dewy pity for thee shall blow. — 
Monseigneur, thou wert not all ignoble : thy Mud- 
volcano was but strength dislocated, fire misapplied. 25 
Thou wentest ravening through the world; no Life- 
elixir or Stone of the Wise could we two (for want of 
funds) discover : a foulest Circe undertook to fatten 
thee; and thou hadst to fill thy belly with the east 
wind. And burst ? By the Masonry of Enoch, No ! 



138 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

Behold, has not thy Jesuit Familiar his Scouts dim- 
flying over the deep of human things ? Cleared art thou 
of crime, save that of fixed-idea; v^eepest, a repentant 
exile, in the Mountains of Auvergne. Neither shall the 

5 Eed Fire-sea itself consume thee ; only consume thy Gig, 
and, instead of Gig (0 rich exchange !), restore thy Self. 
Safe beyond the Ehine-stream, thou livest peaceful days ; 
savest many from the fire, and anointest their smarting 
burns. Sleep finally, in thy mother's bosom, in a good old 

10 age ! " — The Cardinal gave a sort of guttural murmur, 
or gurgle, which ended in a long sigh. 

'• Horrors, as ye shall be called," again burst forth 
the Quack, " why have ye missed the Sieur de Lamotte ; 
why not of him, too, made gallows-carrion ? Will 

15 spear, or sword-stick, thrust at him - (or supposed to be 
thrust), through window of hackney-coach, in Piccadilly 
of the Babylon of Fog, where he jolts disconsolate, not 
let out the imprisoned animal existence ? Is he poisoned, 
too ? Poison will not kill the Sieur Lamotte ; nor steel, 

20 nor massacres. Let him drag his utterly superfluous life 
to a second and a third generation ; and even admit the 
not too judicious Historian to see his face before he die. 
" But, ha ! " cried he, and stood wide-staring, horror- 
struck, as if some Cribb's fist had knocked the wind out 

25 of him : ^^ horror of horrors ! Is it not Myself I see ? 
Koman Inquisition ! Long months of cruel baiting ! 
Life of Giuseppe Balsamo ! Cagliostro's Body still 
lying in St. Leo Castle, his Self fled — whither ? By- 
standers wag their heads, and say : ^ The Brow of Brass, 
behold how it has got all unlacquered ; these Pinchbeck 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 139 

lips can lie no more ! ' Eheu ! Ohoo ! " — And lie burst 
into unstanchable blubbering of tears ; and sobbing out 
the moanfullest broken howl, sank down in swoon ; to 
be put to bed by De Launay and others. 

Thus spoke (or thus might have spoken), and .prophe- 5 
sied, the Arch-Quack Cagliostro : and truly much better 
than he ever else did : for not a jot or tittle of it (save 
only that of our promised Interview with Nestor de 
Lamotte, which looks unlikelier than ever, for we have 
not heard of him, dead or living, since 1826) — but has 10 
turned out to be literally true. As indeed in all this 
History, one jot or tittle of untruth, that we could ren- 
der true, is perhaps not discoverable ; much as the dis- 
trustful reader may have disbelieved. 

Here, then, our little labor ends. The Necklace was, 15 
and is no more : the stones of it again " circulate 
in Commerce," some of them perhaps in Bundle's at 
this hour ; and may give rise to what other Histories we 
know not. The Conquerors of it, every one that 
trafficked in it, have they not all had their due, which 20 
was Death ? 

This little Business, like a little cloud, bodied itself 
forth in skies clear to the unobservant : but with such 
hues of deep-tinted villany, dissoluteness and general 
delirium as, to the observant, betokened it electric ; and 25 
wise men, a Goethe for example, boded Earthquakes. 
Has not the Earthquake come ? 



NOTES. 



CHAPTER I. 

Page 37, Line 7. Improved-drops. New contrivances for mak- 
ing easy the execution of criminals at Newgate prison, tlie chief crim- 
inal prison of London. 

P. 37, 1. 9. liife. Note the use of capital initial letters throughout 
this work. What is your opinion of such use ? 

P. 37, 1. 10. Heyday. Consult the dictionary for the etymology 
of this word. 

P. 38, 1. 1. Pitifullest. Carlyle rides ruthlessly over the conven- 
tionalities of grammar, and is always ready to sacrifice euphony to 
force. Note other instances of this formation of the superlative. 

P. 38, 1. 9. Pattern-Figure. Carlyle is fond of applying such 
descriptive metaphors and figurative nicknames to persons, objects, 
or events, and having found a good one, repeats it again and again. 
Thus, he speaks of Gigmanity ; constantly calls Rohan a Mud-vol- 
cano ; and names Madame Lamotte Creative Dramaturgist. 

P. 38, 1. 15. Gigman. Carlyle's footnote here is: ** I always 
considered him a respectable man. — What do you mean by respect- 
able ? He kept a Gig." — ThurtelVs Trial. 

P. 39, 1. 2. There is the rub. Compare Hamlet, Act III., scene 

I-,- 

" To die, — to sleep : — 

To sleep! perchance to dream; ay, there's the rub." 

P. 39, 1. 16. Constitutional History, Philosophy of History, 

etc. All terms frequently employed at that time and now to describ- 
the method of writing history in which special attention is given not 
so much to the facts as to the moral and political lessons taught, or 
the constitutional development shown by the facts. Dionysus of 
Halicarnassus says, " History is philosophy teaching by examples." 

141 



142 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

P. 40, 1. 6. Politico-metaphysical abstraction. The author's 
and others' speculations as to the political or moral cause, meaning, 
and effects of an event in history, rather than the actual historical 
facts. Carlyle scorned guesses, cant, and sham philosophy. His de- 
mand was for Facts, Facts ; the truth, not speculations upon the truth. 

P. 40, 1. 26. Life- writing. The etymological translation of " bi- 
ography," which is derived, through the Greek fiioy^afia, from jSj'oj 
(life) and ypa(p£iv (to write). 

P. 40, 1. 28. Bos well, James (1740-1795) , the biographer of Samuel 
Johnson. His biography, the most famous in the English language, 
is noted for the minutely truthful picture it gives of Dr. Johnson. 
Boswell did not spare himself for the sake of *' respectability," and 
his position as reverential reporter of all Johnson's sayings and do- 
ings sometimes makes him appear " ridiculous." He has, however, 
written a true, not a sham, life of the great English man of letters. 

P. 41, 1. 11. Charlemagne. The Emperor Charlemagne (742-814) 
and his paladin, Roland, were the constant themes of song, story, and 
romance during the Middle Ages. This great emperor did not feel 
himself above the petty details of caring for his estate. He person- 
ally superintended the planting of trees and flowers in his gardens, 
and gave directions as to what meat and vegetables should be kept in 
store, and how the poultry and stock should be fed. There is a pretty 
legend that Eginhard, the secretary of Charlemagne, made love to 
Emma, the emperor's daughter, and used frequently to visit her 
secretly in the evening. One evening snow fell while Eginhard was 
with Emma. Fearing that the tracks of Eginhard's feet in the 
snow, as he returned, would disclose their intimacy, Emma carried 
her lover back on her shoulders, knowing that a woman's footprints 
would excite no curiosity. Charlemagne, however, observed the pro- 
ceedings from a window, and learning the story of their love, blessed 
them and consented to their marriage. 

In 782, in revenge for a revolt of the Saxons and the consequent 
defeat and slaughter of several of his captains on the banks of the 
river Weser, Charlemagne caused 4,500 of the Saxons to be beheaded 
at a place called Werden, on the river Aller. The story of Roland 
and how he died in the pass of Roncesvalles should be familiar to all. 

P. 41, 1. 28. Turpins and Ariostos. Turpin is the name given 
to a fictitious archbishop of Rheims in the time of Charlemagne, to 



NOTES. 143 

whom was ascribed the authorship of certain Latin prose narratives 
describing Charlemagne's expedition to Spain and the exploits of 
Roland. The manuscript was really written in the 11th or 12th cen- 
tury. Ludovicus Ariosto (1474-1533), a famous Italian poet, wrote the 
great romantic epic poem " Orlando Furioso," the hero of which, Or- 
lando, is identical with Roland. 

P. 42, 1. 14. Bright-rolling, etc. Such compounds are very com- 
mon in the German language, of which Carlyle was an enthusiastic 
student. The influence of German literature on hi& thought and style 
is very apparent. 

P. 42, 1. 25. Real-Phantasmagory. Phantasmagory, the optical 
effect produced by the magic lantern. The thought here is, that the 
different forms of being and the changes of man's life appear before 
the thoughtful observer as the varied images cast by the magic lan- 
tern. The page or more beginning " He has witnessed overhead " 
is a fine example of Carlyle's power of poetical word-painting when 
he rises to one of his rapt moods. 

P. 43, 1. 24. The Flame-image. What is meant by this term ? 

P. 43, 1. 30. Jean Paul. Johann Paul Friederich Richter (1763- 
1825), German author and humorist, commonly called Jean Paul. 
His style is like Carlyle's in many ways, and Carlyle is thought to 
owe much of his peculiar grotesqueness and figurativeness of style 
to Richter. At any rate, he read and studied Richter, and contrib- 
uted essays upon his life and writings to the Edinburgh Revieio (1827) 
and to the Foreign Revieio (1830). 

P. 44, 1. 8. Environment. Newly coined. The coining of new 
words is a fault of Carlyle's that young writers should avoid. John 
Sterling said, referring to Carlyle's writings: " A good deal of the 
language is positively barbarous. 'Environment,' 'vestural,' 'ster- 
torous,' ' visualized,' ' complected,' and others I think to be found in 
the first thirty pages are words, so far as I know, without any author- 
ity ; some of them contrary to analogy ; and none repaying by their 
value the disadvantage of novelty." Some of Carlyle's new words, 
however, have enriched our language. Environment^ for example, is 
a very useful word. 

P. 45, 1. 24. Geography, etc. What is the distinction between 
geography and topography, and why make the distinction " in this 
case"? 



144 THOMAS CARLYLE. 



CHAPTER II. 

P, 46, 1. 6. He has long since exchanged his guttural, etc. 
Notice the use of the historical present. Carlyle habitually uses it 
in preference to the past tense, as will be observed throughout this 
work. Guttural is characteristic of the German, as 7iasal of the 
French. Boehmer had been court jeweller to the King of Saxony 
before coming to Paris. 

P. 46, 1. 20. Ruelle. The space about the bed in the bed-chamber 
or alcove, where great personages often received guests and held 
receptions in the morning before arising. Hence, a private place, 
" an inner circle." It is derived from the French rue, and means, 
literally, a little, or ji arrow, street. 

P. 47, 1. 9. JoailSier-Bijoiitier de la Reine. Queen's jeweller. 

P. 47, 1. 14. Among the Seventies of last Century. Carlyle's 
footnote: Except that Madame Campan (MemoiJ'es, tome ii.) says the 
Necklace " was intended for Du Barry," one cannot discover, within 
many years, the date of its manufacture. Du Barry went " into half 
pay " on the 10th of May, 1774, — the day when her king died. 

P. 47, 1. 23. Did worthy Bassange. Interrogation is often em- 
ployed by Carlyle. It serves to excite interest in what is to come and 
gives variety of expression. 

P. 48, 1. 21. Deucalion Deluges, etc. Deucalion was the classi- 
cal Noah, and in the Greek mythology he and his wife Pyrrha were 
the only survivors of the great flood. James Hutton (1726-1797), 
Scotch geologist, was the author of the Plutonian theory in geology; 
namely, that the successive rocks of the earth's crust were formed by 
fusion; that is, through the agency of fire — hence, *' explosions." 
Abraham Gottlieb Werner (1750-1817), German geologist, was the 
author of the Neptunian theory, that primitive and other rocks were 
formed by precipitation from loater — hence, " submersions." 

P. 49, 1. 2. Charles the Rash. Commonly called Charles the 
Bold, duke of Burgundy. In the reign of Louis XI. of France, 
the restless ambition of Charles led him to seek independence from the 
French kingdom. One after another his daring plans were defeated, 
and he was finally slain at Nancy in 1477. After the battle his body 
was found frozen in a pool by the roadside. 



NOTES. 145 

P. 50, 1. 10. Defender of the Faith, Title of the English sover- 
eign. It was first given by the Pope to Henry VIII. for his defence 
of the church against Luther. 

P. 50, 1. 15. A Heroism, etc. Is the use of the article before 
these abstract nouns allowable ? 

P. 50, 1. 17. Some five or six Books. Is this statement true? 
Name the five or six greatest books of the world, in your opinion. 

P. 50, 1. 21. Keep it unstolen for fourteen years. The term of 
copyright in England formerly was fourteen years. Since 1842 the 
copyright term has been the life of tlie author and seven years after. 
In no case, however, is it to be less than forty-two years, even though 
the author die before the expiration of that term from the date of 
copyright. 

P. 50, 1. 26. Printseller, of the Rue d'Enfer. Carlyle's foot- 
note gives some of the authorities he consulted in writing the '' Dia- 
mond Necklace," as follows : — 

Frontispiece of the ^'^ Affaire du Collier, Paris, 1785; " wherefrom 
Georgel's Editor has copied it. This *' Affaire du Collier, Paris, 1785," 
is not properly a Book ; but a bound Collection of such Law-Papers 
(Memoires pour, etc.) as were printed and emitted by the various par- 
ties in that famed " Necklace Trial." These Law-Papers, bound into 
Two Volumes quarto ; with Portraits, such as the Printshops yielded 
them at the time ; likewise with patches of 3fs., containing Notes, 
Pasquinade-songs, and the like, of the most unspeakable character 
occasionally, — constitute this " Affaire du Collier; " which the Paris 
Dealers in Old Books can still procure there. It is one of the largest 
collections of Falsehoods that exists in print; and, unfortunately, 
still, after all the narrating and history there has been on the subject, 
forms our chief means of getting at the truth of that Transaction. 
The First Volume contains some Twenty-one Memoires pour : not, of 
course. Historical statements of truth; but Culprits' and Lawyers' 
statements of what they wished to be believed ; each party lying ac- 
cording to his ability to lie. To reach the truth, or even any honest 
guess at the truth, the immensities of rubbish must be sifted, con- 
trasted, rejected: what grain of historical evidence may lie at the 
bottom is then attainable. Thus, as this Transaction of the Diamond 
Necklace has been called the "Largest Lie of the Eighteenth Cen- 
tury," so it comes to us borne, not unfitly, on a whole illimitable dim 
Chaos of Lies ! 



146 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

Nay, the Second Volume, entitled Suite de V Affaire du Collier, is 
still stranger. It relates to the Intrigue and Trial of one Bette d'Eti- 
enville, who represents himself as a poor lad that had been kidnapped, 
blindfolded, introduced to beautiful Ladies, and engaged to get hus- 
bands for them ; as setting out on this task, and gradually getting 
quite bewitched and bewildered; — most indubitably, going on to 
bewitch and bewilder other people on all hands of him : the whole in 
consequence of this "Necklace Trial," and the noise it was making! 
Very curious. The Lawyers did verily busy themselves with this 
affair of Bette's ; there are scarecrow Portraits given, that stood in the 
Printshops, and no man can know whether the Originals ever so much 
as existed. It is like the Dream of a Dream. The human mind 
stands stupent; ejaculates the wish that such Gulf of Falsehood 
would close itself, — before general Delirium supervene, and the 
Speech of Man become mere incredible, meaningless jargon, like that 
of choughs and daws. Even from Bette, however, by assiduous sift- 
ing, one gathers a particle of truth here and there. 

P. 51, 1. 19. Espiegleries. French — frolicsome tricks. 



CHAPTER in. 

P. 52, 1. 4. The American War. The French were then assist- 
ing the American Revolution. 

P. 52, 1. 12. Savoir-faire. Skill, tact; literally, knowing how to 
do. 

P. 52, 1. 17. Circulating in commerce. The expression is quoted 
from the "Memoires of Marie Antoinette, by Madame Campan, first 
lady of the bedchamber to the Queen." 

P. 52, 1.17. Du Barry, Countess. Notorious and powerful mistress 
of Louis XV. of France. At the death of Louis XV., in 1774, she re- 
tired to St. Cyr, two and one-half miles west of Versailles. She was 
executed during the Reign of Terror. 

P. 53, 1. 1. The Guillotine-axe is forging. Compare with the 
opening chapter of Dickens's " Tale of Two Cities." Tailles were a 
kind of feudal tax paid by the subject to the king or overlord, in 
France ; especially, a tax upon the profits of the farmer, estimated by 
the amount of stock on hand. 



NOTES. 147 

P. 53, 1. 11. Pombal, Marquis de. An eminent Portuguese states- 
man, minister of foreign affairs 1699-1782. As such he held in check 
the nobility and removed many abuses. 

P. 53, 1. 16. Marie Antoinette. Queen of France 1774-1792 
and wife of Louis XVI. She was bom at Vienna, in the imperial 
castle of Schonbrunn, Nov. 2, 1755, her father being the Em- 
peror Francis I. of Germany, and her mother the famous Maria 
Theresa. At the age of fourteen she was betrothed to the Dauphin of 
France. The next year, in April, the prospective bride set out from 
Vienna and was received at Strasburg with great acclamation by the 
French people, and with elaborate ceremony by Prince Louis de Ro- 
han, acting as the royal deputy. The marriage ceremony was per- 
formed at Versailles, May 16, 1770, Marie Antoinette being not yet 
fifteen years of age. She became queen in May, 1774, at the accession 
of her husband to the throne as Louis XVI. She was of a bright, 
vivacious, simple, and frank nature ; was fond of pleasure and fine 
dress ; but despised court etiquette. Not intending to do wrong by 
her frivolities, she yet had a fatal misconception of the condition of 
France and of the misery that existed there. Indifferent to the opin- 
ions of the court and of the people, she persisted in doing as she 
pleased ; thus offending the court by her contempt of etiquette and 
disregard for their feelings, and provoking the people by her friend- 
ship for unworthy favorites and by making no attempt to court popu- 
larity. Her enemies circulated stories about her intrigues, probably 
all of them false, and she was undoubtedly " more sinned against 
than sinning." The affair of the Diamond Necklace, in which she 
was entirely innocent, blasted her good name forever. Her influence 
over the king in state matters was unfortunate. She took to med- 
dling in public affairs, and opposed most of the measures of reform in 
the days preceding the Revolution. When the Revolution came, she 
was the object of passionate hatred on the part of the people. She 
shared the varying fortunes of her husband during those awful days, 
and after their imprisonment in the Temple, in 1792, and after the 
execution of the king, her conduct was most heroic. When the 
Reign of Terror was at its height, to sate the public appetite for blood, 
she was dragged before the Revolutionary Tribunal and condemned 
to death. The next day, Oct. 16, 1793, surrounded by a howling and 
jeering mob, the once beautiful queen — her hair now turned white 



148 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

by the terrors through which she had passed — was dragged in a 
tumbrel to the guillotine, and beheaded. 

P. 53, 1. 22. Seventy-fours. Naval vessels carrying seventy-four 
guns; needed to carry on the war with England. 

P. 53, 1. 22. Laudatur et alget. It is praised and yet is neglected ; 
literally, and yet freezes, grows cold, is not cherished. 

P. 53, 1. 24, The Two Sicilies. Carlyle's note : " See Me'moires 
de Campan, II., 1-26." Sicily and Naples, under one king until 1870, 
were called the Two Sicilies. 

P. 53, 1. 28. Bankruptcy. The immediate occasion, and one of 
the causes, of the French Revolution was the utter bankruptcy of the 
national treasury. For an account of this see Carlyle's " French 
Revolution," vol. I., Book II. 

P. 54, 1. 10. Irreducible case of Cardan. Jerome Cardan was 
a noted mathematician of the sixteenth century. He made many 
discoveries in algebra and formulated rules for the resolution of cubic 
equations. An Italian algebraist proposed a question which Cardan 
could not solve by his rules. Bombelli, an Italian mathematician of 
the same period, published a work in which he explained the nature 
of this irreducible case of Cardan. 



CHAPTER IV. 

P. 55, 1. 13. Royal Society of London. An association of men of 
learning for the promotion of scientific study and the discussion of 
scientific subjects. It was founded as early as 1660. 

P. 55, 1. 14. Corsican Letitia. The name of Napoleon Bona- 
parte's mother, before she married Charles Bonaparte, was Letitia 
Ramolino. 

P. 55, 1. 16. Federations of the Champ de Mars, etc. The Fed- 
eration of the Champ de Mars, or Fete of the Federation, was held 
July 14, 1790, the first anniversary of the fall of the Bastille. It was 
an elaborate ceremony of peace and good will. All orders took part 
in it, the king swore to observe and preserve the constitution, and it 
was the general impression that a new era of peace and reconciliation 
had been ushered in. See Carlyle's ** French Revolution," vol. I. 
Book I. chapter xii. September Massacres. In September, 1792, 



NOTES. 149 

the news of the advance of the allied forces of Austria and Prussia 
upon the Revolutionists led to the " Massacres of September." 
Bands of assassins entered the prisons of Paris, Versailles, Lyons, 
and other cities, and murdered the prisoners of the Revolution in 
cold blood. About three thousand were killed. Bakers' Custom- 
ers en queue. Bakers' customers in line, awaiting their turn to 
buy bread. During the early days of the Revolution the scarcity of 
bread and the rush for it when the people obtained a little money 
made it necessary for the crowds at the bakers' shops to form in line, 
each awaiting his turn to buy. Carlyle describes this in " French 
Revolution," I., VI., chapter iv. Danton, Desmoulins, etc. All 
leaders in the French Revolution. Robespierre's apparent conscien- 
tiousness and reluctance to adopt the death penalty, when contrasted 
with the horrible scenes of the Reign of Terror, for which he is gen- 
erally held accountable, have made him, whether justly or not, 
appear hypocritical. Hence Carlyle likens him to Tartuffe, a cele- 
brated hypocritical pretender to religion, the hero of Moliere's com- 
edy of the same name. Marat was at one time a drug clerk. 

P. 56, 1. 4. Coadjutor, etc. A coadjutor was an assistant to a 
bishop ; a Grand Almoner, one of the most powerful ofiQcers of the 
court and the kingdom, by virtue of his office commander of all the 
orders and director of the great hospital for the blind. A commenda- 
tor was one who held a living in commendam ; that is, a vacant 
living held usually by a bishop until a pastor might be provided, the 
revenues meanwhile to be collected by the commendator. 

P. 56, 1. 14. Siamese Twins. Eng and Chang, two boys born of 
Chinese parents in Siam, in 1825, and having their bodies united by 
a band of flesh stretching from breast bone to breast bone. Both died 
in 1874, though not at the same time. 

P. 56, 1. 16. Rohan, Louis Rene' Edouard, Cardinal de (1734-1803), 
the hero and dupe of the Necklace case. The family of Rohan traced 
its origin to the kings of Brittany and was granted the rank and pre- 
cedence of a royal princely family by Louis XIV. Members of the 
family had been archbishops of Strasburg since 1704. Prince Louis 
was made coadjutor to his uncle, Constantine Rohan-Rochefort, in 
1760. He joined the party opposed to the Austrian alliance. In 1772 
he went to Vienna as ambassador, and displeased Maria Theresa. 
He was recalled in 1774. However, through family influence, he 



150 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

was appointed Grand Almoner in 1777, and became Abbot of St. 
Vaast in 1778, and the same year was made a cardinal. The next 
year he succeeded his uncle as Archbishop of Strasburg, with an 
income of 2,500,000 livres. In 1780 he met Cagliostro and lodged him 
in his palace. After the Necklace trial he was deprived of his office 
of Grand Almoner and banished to his Abbey of Chaise-Dieu. 
Allowed to return to Strasburg, in 1789 he was elected to the States 
General, but in 1791, refusing to take the oath to support the consti- 
tution, he went to Germany, where he lived imtil his death in 
1803. 

P. 56, 1. 24. Northern Immigrations. The barbarian invasions of 
Gaul by the northern German races in the early centuries of the 
Christian era. 

P. 57, 1. 5. Cousin Soubise at Rosbach. The family of Soubise 
was related to that of Rohan. Rosbach, or Rossbach, was a small 
village of Prussian Saxony, where in 1757 Frederick the Great and 
22,000 Prussians overwhelmingly defeated the combined French and 
Imperial army under the Prince of Soubise, an incompetent French 
general, who held his command only through family influence. Car- 
lyle's footnote reads : "Here is the Epigram they made against him 
on occasion of Rosbach — in that ' Despotism tempered by Epigrams,' 
which France was then said to be : 

' Soubise dit, lalanterne k la main, 
J'ai beau cliercher, on diable est mon Arm^e ? 
EUe 6tait la pourtant hier matin : 
Me Ta-t-on prise, ou I'aurais-je egaree? — 

Que vois-je, 6 ciel ! que mon a.me est ravie ! 
Prodige heureux! la voil^, la voila! — 
Ah, ventrebleu! qu'est-ce done que cela? 
Je me trompais, c'est I'Arm^e Ennemie ! * 

Lacretelle, ii. 206." 



These verses may be translated freely as follows; Soubise, lantern 
in hand, said, " I have sought in vain — where the devil is my army ? 
Yet it was yonder yesterday morning ; has some one stolen it from 
me, or could I have mislaid it ? What do I see, oh heaven, rapture, 



NOTES, 151 

rapture! Happy portent ! There it is, there it is! Ah, ventrebleu ! 
what's that ? I made a mistake, it is the enemy's army." 

P. 57, 1. 23. Louis the Well-beloved. The title Bien-aime 
(well-beloved) was given to Louis XV., when he lay very ill at Metz 
in 1744. It was bestowed because of the prayerful anxiety of the 
people for his recovery. The title is the height of irony in view of 
his subsequent outrageous and infamous reign. See chapter I. of the 
" French Revolution." 

P. 58, 1. 6. Parc-aux-cerfs, The Deer Park — a name applied 
in jest to a seraglio established by Louis XV,, where some of his de- 
baucheries were carried on. 

P. 58, 1. 8. En touto nika. The Greek for " In this conquer." 
The better known motto is the Latin, " In hoc signo vinces." This 
was the inscription that Constantino was said to have seen in the 
heavens, accompanied by the sign of the cross, in consequence of 
which appearance he embraced Christianity. 

P. 58, 1. 13. Macchiavellism, Political artifice or intrigue em- 
ployed in upholding despotic government ; from the real or supposed 
principles of government set forth by Macchiavelli, a Florentine 
statesman of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, in his book " The 
Prince." 

P. 58, 1. 20. Back stairs diplomacy. Private, oroflScially imrec- 
ognized, influence or diplomacy. Royal palaces had two stairways — 
the public, or state stairway, and a private stairway. Individuals 
having secret or private business, by having influence with the guard- 
ian of the back stairs, could gain access to royalty through that 
avenue. 

P. 58, 1. 26. St. Wast d' Arras. St. Vaast. 

P. 59, 1. 8. M. de Manrepas, Louis XVI.'s first prime minister. 

P. 59, 1. 18. The poor Tit, The European cuckoo does not build a 
nest of its own, but lays its eggs in the nests of other birds, to be 
hatched by the bird in whose nest it is laid. "We may imagine the 
surprise of some small bird, such as the tit, at hatching a stupid 
cuckoo instead of a child of its own. 

P. 59, 1. 25. King Thierri. Faineans (do-nothings, sluggards) 
was a name applied to the later Merovingian kings of the Franks 
who were incompetent, the mayors of the palace being the virtual 
rulers. Thierry III. was the first, and Childeric III., deposed 730, 
the last, of the Faineans. 



152 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

P. 60, 1. 26. Cardinal, The word is derived from the Latin cardo 
a hinge. " The clerics of the supreme chair are called Cardinals, as 
undoubtedly adhering more nearly to the hinge by which all things 
are moved." (Pope Leo IX,, quoted in " International Dictionary.") 

P. 60, 1, 28, Inhafeitant of Saturn. Fair example of Carlyle's 
habit of exaggeration. 

P. 61, 1. 8. Roueism. State, quality, or condition of being a rou4 ; 
that is a person addicted to sensual pleasures, a rake. Carlyle never 
hesitates to coin a new word, or make a new compound, if it seems 
useful. 

P. 61, 1. 18. Poland a-partitionin?. The first partition of Po- 
land was made in 1772. Catherine the Great of Russia, Frederick 
the Great of Prussia, and Maria Theresa each seized a portion of the 
unfortunate country, and after two later partitionings it ceased to 
exist as a nation . 

P. 62, 1. 3. Take her share. Coxlyl&'snote: M^moires deVAhhe 
Georgel, ii. 1-220. Abbe Georgel, who has given, in the place referred 
to, a long solemn Narrative of the Necklace Business, passes for the 
grand authority on it : but neither will he, strictly taken up, abide 
scrutiny. He is vague as may be ; writing in what is called the 
**soaped-pig" fashion: yet sometimes you do catch him, and hold 
him. There are hardly above three dates in his whole Narrative. 
He mistakes several times ; perhaps, once or twice, wilfully misrepre- 
sents, a little. The main incident of the business is misdated by 
him, almost a twelve-month. It is to be remembered that the poor 
Abbe wrote in exile ; and with cause enough for prepossessions and 
hostilities. 

P. 62, 1. 5. Minister D'Aiguillon. Then prime minister of 
France. 

P. 62, 1. 7. Souper, Supper. 

P. 62, 1. 15. The Scarlet Woman. Referring to Rome, which is 
one interpretation of * ' the woman " in Revelation xvii. 

P. 62, 1. 28. Meanwhile Louis the Avell-beloved. Louis XV. 
died of the small-pox. May 10, 1774. Every one had deserted him 
save a few serving-women. As a signal that he was dead, it is said, 
a lighted candle was placed in a window of the palace ; whereupon 
the courtiers all rushed, " making a noise absolutely like thunder," 
to hail the new king, Louis XVL Le roi est mort, vive le roi ; the 



NOTES. 153 

king is dead, long live the king. See the *' French Revolution," 
vol. I., Book I., chapter xv.) also chapter xiii. of the "Diamond 
Necklace." Louis was huried at St. Denis, the burial-place of the 
French kings, four and one half miles north of Paris. 

P. 63, 1, 4. Amende honorable. Public apology or reparation 
for improper language or treatment : a rather mild term to signify 
repentance before God. 

P. 63, 1. 17. Louis XVI, King of France, 1774-1792, and husband 
of Marie Antoinette. He was born Aug. 23, 1754, and became king 
in May, 1774, succeeding his grandfather, Louis XV. He was a 
man of temperate, moral, and uj)right character, but was an incom- 
petent king. As dauphin he had, for amusement, learned the trade 
of locksmith from a mechanic named Gamin, or Gamain, and it would 
have been well for him had he been born to no higher lot. Louis' 
intentions were good, but his force of mind and will were weak, and 
all his good intentions were thwarted by the court and the nobility. 
The troubled times into which he was born demanded a king of fore- 
sight and determination, both of which he lacked. As a result, 
though the people at first loved him and long wished him no ill, be- 
lieving him to be misled by his advisers, yet in the stormy days of 
the Revolution sentiment changed. Louis was deposed September, 
1792, and after a farcical trial, in which he bore himself with much 
fortitude, he met death by the guillotine, Jan. 21, 1793. 

P. 63, 1. 22. Heaven and earth. Carlyle frequently uses excla- 
mations to add force and vivacity to his style. 

P. 64, 1. 2. Velocity increasing. This is the law of falling 
bodies, for an explanation of which see any text-book on Physics. 

P. 64, 1. 9. Comparable to that of Satan. See Milton's descrip- 
tion of Satan's fall in "Paradise Lost," Book I., lines 44-53: — 

" Him the Almighty power 
Hurl'd headlong flaming from th' ethereal sky, 
With hideous ruin and combustion, down 
To bottomless perdition, there to dwell 
In adamantine chains and penal fire, 
Who durst defy the Omnipotent to arms," etc. 

P. 64, 1. 11. Choiseul, Wolsey, Racine. Consult biographical 
dictionary or encyclopaedia. 



154 THOMAS CARLYLB, 

P. 65, 1. 3. Friar Bacon's head. Roger Bacon Was a famous 
monk, philosopher, and scientist of the thirteenth century. He is 
said to have made a brazen head which answered questions. Such 
heads were made to answer inquiries by the trick of having an assist- 
ant concealed, who talked through the long flexible gullet of a 
crane. 
P. 65, 1. 10. Burning marl. 

His [Satan's] spear . , . 
He walked with to support uneasy steps 
Over the burning marl. 

Paradise Lost, Book I., lines 292-296. 

P. 65, 1. 11. De Marsan, Richelieu, etc. Noble families that 
still enjoyed the favor of the court, though he was cast out. 

iP. 65, 1. 24. Red stockings. Part of his official dress as cardinal. 

P. 65, 1. 25. Garden of Trianon. The Grand and Petit Tria- 
nons were beautiful villas, erected by Louis XIV. and Louis XV., 
respectively. The Petit (Little) Trianon had a fine garden, with an 
artificial lake, magnificent trees, a celebrated Hornbeam Arbor, and 
water-works designed by Lenotre, the famous landscape gardener of 
the reign of Louis XIV. The Little Trianon had been given to 
Marie Antoinette by her husband, and was a favorite resort of hers. 

P. 65, 1. 28. King's-evil. Scrofula was so called from the belief 
that it could be cured by the royal touch. Of course the term is 
used figuratively here. 

P. 65, 1.29. Campan. Carlyle's footnote: Madame Campan, in 
her Narrative, and indeed, in her M4moires generally, does not seem 
to intend falsehood : this, in the Business of the Necklace, is saying 
a great deal. She rather, perhaps, intends the producing of an im- 
pression ; which may have appeared to herself to be the right one. 
But, at all events, she has, here or elsewhere, no notion of historical 
rigor, she gives hardly any date, or the like ; will tell the same thing, 
in different places, different ways, etc. There is a tradition that 
Louis XVIII. revised her Memoires before publication. She requires 
to be read with scepticism everywhere, but yields something in that 
way. 

P. 66, 1. 2. Pillar of salt. Allusion to Lot's wife ; see Genesis 
xix. 

P. 66, 1. 5. Saverne. A small town about 300 miles east of Paris 



NOTES. 155 

and 14 miles from Strasburg ; noted for a fine palace, in which Rohan 
lived at that time. 

P. 66, 1. 6. Hope deferred, etc. Proverbs xii., 13. 

P. 66, 1. 12. To appease the Jews, Of whom, probably, he had 
borrowed money without the means of repayment. 

P. 66, 1. 22. Cagliostro, Count Alessandro di, "the arch-quack 
of the eighteenth century," was born at Palermo, of humble parentage, 
in 1743. His real name was Giuseppe (Joseph) Balsamo. He seems 
to have led a wild and abandoned life as a youth. After travelling in 
Egypt and the East, returning to Italy, he married a pretty young 
woman of Venice, and the two started out on a career of fraud and 
knavery. Assuming the title of Count Cagliostro, he travelled through 
Europe as physician, astrologer, alchemist, magician, philosopher, 
and exponent of " Egyptian Masonry," the secrets of which he pre- 
tended to have discovered in the East. He also did a thriving busi- 
ness in the " elixir of immortal youth." Not only the lower, but the 
higher classes were duped by him, and in spite of several exposures 
he continued to prosper. He went to Strasburg in 1780, then to Eng- 
land, and back to Paris in 1785, where he figured in the Necklace case. 
Thrown into the Bastille, but soon released, he again started out on 
his knavish travels. But his popularity was on the wane, and upon 
his visiting Rome, he was tried and condemned to death by the In- 
quisition for practising Egyptian Masonry. His sentence was com- 
muted to life imprisonment, and he was lodged in the fortress of San 
Leon, or St. Leo, where he died in 1795. 

P. 66, 1. 24. Elective affinity. A scientific term signifying chem- 
ical attraction. Elementary substances by elective afiinity are at- 
tracted to each other and unite to form chemical compounds. 

P. 67, 1.12. Fripiers. Literally, second-hand dealers in a small way. 
The term is applied in an uncomplimentary sense to those who busy 
themselves in seeking advancement by petty and questionable means. 

P. 67, 1. 19. Diderot, Denis (1713-84), celebrated French philo- 
sophical writer, man of letters, and encyclopaedist. He was joint 
editor with D'Alembert of the great French Encyclopedie, which had 
Voltaire and Rousseau as contributors, and exerted a great influence 
on French thought. Carlyle wrote an essay on Diderot. 

P. 68, 1. 4. The Chamois-hunter. During the close season the 
killing of chamois was punished by imprisonment in the quicksilver 



156 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

mines. As is well known, the effect of quicksilver, or mercury, upon 
the system is to cause salivation. 

P. 68, 1. 8. With a woful ballad. From the ** seven ages of 
man," Shakspeare's " As You Like It," Act II., scene vii., — 

"And then the lover, 
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad 
Made to his mistress' eyebrow." 

P. 68, 1. 9. Werter-Tvise, like Werther, the hero of Goethe's ro- 
mance " The Sorrows of Werther." Falling in love with Lotte, his 
friend's wife, and not being able to conquer his passion, he took his 
own life. 

P. 68, 1. 23. The old nine kingdoms were England, France, 
Scotland, Castile, Aragon, Navarre, Sweden, Denmark, Hungary. 

CHAPTER V. 

P. 70, 1. 9. Nodus. The knot, intrigue, or plot of a piece. 

P. 70, 1. 17. Henri Second, Henry II. was a dissolute king of 
France, of the house of Yalois. He was accidentally wounded in a 
tournament, and died from the effects of the wound, in 1559. 

P. 70, 1. 20. In vice. In the place of, as the representative of. 

P. 71, 1. 19. Out into the highways to beg. Carlyle's note : Vie 
de Jeanne Comtesse de Lamotte (by Herself) vol. I. 

P. 71, 1. 30. Suspicious presents. Carlyle's note: He was of 
Hebrew descent: grandson of the renowned Jew Bernard, whom 
Louis XV., and even Louis XIV., used to " walk with in the Royal 
Garden," when they wanted him to lend them money. See Souve- 
nirs du Due de Levis ; Meinoires de Duclos, etc. 

P. 72, 1. 20. Leaves of unknown number. Carlyle's note: 
Four Memoires pourhjhev, in this Affaire du Collier; like '* Lawyers' 
tongues turned inside out! " Afterwards One Volume, Memoires 
Jvstificatifs de la Comiesse de, etc. (London, 1788) ; with Appendix of 
" Documents " so-called. This has also been translated into a kind of 
English. Then Two Volumes, as quoted above: Vie de Jeanne de, 
etc.; printed in London, — byway of extorting money /rom Paris. 
This latter Lying Autobiography of Lamotte was bough t-up by 
French persons in authority. It was the burning of this Editio Prin- 
ceps in the Sevres Potteries, on the 30th of May 1792, which raised 



NOTES. 157 

such a smoke, that the Legislative Assembly took alarm ; and had an 
investigation about it, and considerable examining of Potters, etc., 
till the truth came out. Copies of the Book were speedily reprinted 
after the Tenth of August. It is in English too ; and, except in the 
Necklace part, is not so entirely distracted as the former. 

P. 73, 1. 29. Gigmanity disgigged. Both words coined by Car- 
lyle. Gigmanity is a favorite word with him, and means that portion 
of humanity who slavishly and snobbishly worship this world's goods 
as the only evidence of respectability and propriety. " Disgigged," 
of course, means " deprived of its gig;" that is, of its much-wor- 
shipped evidences of respectability. 

P. 74, 1. 1. Varium et semper mutabile. See the Latin prov- 
erbs, etc., in the appendix of any good dictionary. 

P. 74, 1. 4. Rackets and sullens. A rather ''free and easy" 
use of words, of which, however, Carlyle was entirely capable. 

P. 74, 1. 9. Namby-pambying. Acting in a weakly, sentimental, 
and affected manner. 

P. 74, 1. 20. Uncle Toby. A noted character and the real hero of 
Sterne's " Tristram Shandy." 

P. 75, 1. 9. We can, etc. Of course " we " refers to Jeanne. Viv- 
idness of description is secured by thus causing the reader to assume 
the person of Mademoiselle. 

P. 75, 1. 24. Minden. A Prussian town, where, in 1759, Ferdi- 
nand, Duke of Brunswick, general of Frederick the Great, defeated 
the French. 

P. 76, 1. 16. Marquis d'Autichamp. Carlyle's note : He is the 
same Marquis d'Autichamp who was to *' relieve Lyons," and raise 
the Siege of Lyons, in Autumn 1793, but could not do it. 

CHAPTER VI. 

P. 78, 1. 3. D'Ormesson, Joly de Fleury, Calonne. Each was 
in turn comptroller-general of finances in the reign of Louis XVI., 
and all failed to manage the finances in a competent manner. 

P. 78, 1. 8. Madame of France. The King's step-sister. Car- 
lyle's note : ** See Campan." 

P. 78, 1. 16. Drop hints. Carlyle's note: Vie de Jeanne de La- 
motte, etc. ^critepar elle-meme, vol. i. 



158 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

P. 79, 1. 6. Belle Ima^e, Madame Campan says : '' She lodged 
at the Belle Image, a very middling, ready-furnished hotel." 

P. 79, 1. 20. Elective Franchises, The right to vote. The ex- 
tending of the elective franchise in England was a subject of much 
discussion when Carlyle was writing this work. 

P. 80, 1. 2. Atropos, The third sister of the three Fates. She cut 
the thread of life when it was completely spun. See "Fates" in 
dictionary. 

P. 80, 1. 10. Tubalcain, The reputed first worker in metals. 
See Genesis iv. 22. 

P. 80, 1. 19. Valetaille, Valets; the body of servants, taken col- 
lectively. 

P. 81, 1. 6. Reformed Parliaments, England at this time was 
just passing through a period of agitation for parliamentary reform ; 
that is, the adjustment of the inequalities of parliamentary represen- 
tation. The Reform Bill passed in 1832. See any English History. 

P. 81, 1. 26. Hesperides apples. That is, golden apples, such as 
grew in the Garden of the Hesperides. Consult some manual of 
mythology. 

P. 82, 1. 2. Erasmus' ape, Erasmus, noted Dutch scholar (1467- 
1536). 

P. 82, 1. 9. Burnt cork, etc. Burnt cork is used in the " make- 
up " of the face of actors ; brayed-resin serves to counterfeit lightning; 
thunder-barrels produce thunder. 

P. 82, 1. 15. Prospero's grotto. See " The Tempest" of Shak- 
speare. 

P. 82, 1. 26. Drunk Christopher Sly, The account of the drunk- 
en tinker, Christopher Sly, is given in the Induction of Shakspeare's 
" Taming of the Shrew." He is found dead drunk by a lord and his 
train, and put into bed. "When he awakes, every effort is made to 
induce him to believe that he has been asleep and dreaming for fif- 
teen years, and that he is not Christopher Sly, but a lord. He finally 
believes this, and the " Taming of the Shrew "is played for his 
amusement. "The Sleeper Awakened" is a similar story in the 
" Arabian Nights." 

P. 82, 1. 28. The Gadarenes Swine, The allusion to the cast- 
ing out of unclean spirits into swine, as told in Mark v., beginning, 
" And they came over unto the other side of the sea into the country 
of the Gadarenes." 



NOTES. 159 

P. 83, 1. 1. The Quack of Quacks. Cagliostro. Hieroglyphic 
screens, columbs, etc., were a part of his mummery. A columb was 
*' a lad or young girl who is in the state of innocence; the Venera- 
ble communicates to him the power he would have had before the 
fall of man ; which power consists mainly in commanding the pure 
spirits ; the spirits are to the number of seven ; it is said they sur- 
round the throne ; their names are Anael, Michael, Raphael, Gabriel, 
Uriel, Zobiachel, Anachiel." Quoted by Carlyle in his " Cagliostro." 

CHAPTER VII. 

P. 84, 1. 6. Queen's Majesty itself. Carlyle's note: Compare 
Rohan's M^moires pour (there are four of them), in the Affaire du 
Colliery with Lamotte's four. They go on in the way of controversy, 
of argument and response. 

P. 84, 1. 6. Dost thou bring with thee, etc. When Hamlet 
sees his father's ghost he says : 

" Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damned, 
Bring with thee airs from heaven, or blasts from hell — " 

Hamlet, Act I. , Scene iv. 

P. 84, 1. 12. As Ephraim did, etc. " Ephraim feedeth on wind 
and followeth after the east wind." Hosea xii. 1. 

P. 84, 1. 21. Palace Interviews, Between the Queen and La- 
motte. This paragraph is not, of coursQ, a recital of facts, but of 
what Lamotte represented as facts to Rohan. 

P. 85, 1. 3. "Procession of the Blue Ribands." Carlyle's 
note : Lamotte's M4moires Justificatifs (London, 1788). 

P. 85, 1. 10. On the 21st of March, The Cardinal's first letter 
to the Queen (as he supposed) was an apology for his past misconduct 
and an attempt to excuse it. According to Georgel, "some days 
afterward she [Lamotte] brought an answer back to him written on a 
small sheet of gilt-edged paper, in which Marie Antoinette, whose 
handwriting was successfully imitated, was made to say : * I have 
read your letter ; I am rejoiced to find you not guilty. At present I 
am not able to grant you the audience you desire. "When circimi- 
stances permit you shall be informed of it. Remain discreet.' These 
few words caused in the cardinal a delirium of satisfaction, which it 



160 THOMAS CARLYLE, 

would be diflScuIt to describe. Madame de Lamotte from that 
moment was his tutelary angel, who smoothed for him the path of 
happiness, and from that moment she could have obtained from 
him anything she desired." 

P. 85, 1. 16. Tutelary countess. Carlyle's note: See Georgel : 
see Lamotte's Memoires ; in her Appendix of " Documents" to that 
volume, certain of these Letters are given. 

P. 85, 1. 19. Extraordinary chicken-bowels. Roman augurs 
*' drew prognostics" from the vital organs of fowls. 

P. 85, 1. 23. Malicious Polignaes. The Duchesse de Polignac 
was Marie Antoinette's favorite court-lady, attendant, and adviser. 
Her influence was bad, and she was cordially hated by the populace. 
Her son, the Prince de Polignac, was at the head of the last ministry 
of Charles X. When the obnoxious measures of Charles led to the 
Revolution of July, 1830, and the deposition of Charles, Polignac 
attempted to escape, but was arrested and imprisoned in the Castle of 
Ham, an ancient and celebrated fortress in the small French town 
of that name. Polignac was released in 1836, and died in 1847. 

P. 85, 1. 29. At this hour. Carlyle's note : a.d. 1831. 

P. 86, 1. 11. Tenterden Steeple and Godwin Sands. Tenter- 
den, a market town of Kent, has a church surmounted by a high and 
massive tower. The name Goodwin (or Godwin) Sands is applied 
to a dangerous bank of shifting sands, about ten miles long and five to 
six miles out from the shore of Kent. It is a tradition that these 
sands were once a low part of the mainland, fenced from the sea by 
a wall, and that either some stones collected for strengthening the 
wall, or the funds necessary to keep the wall in repair, were diverted 
to the building of the tower of Tenterden church. As a result the 
wall gave way and submerged the land, thus forming Goodwin 
Sands. Hence the saying arose : "Tenterden steeple was the cause 
of the Goodwin Sands." 

P. 86, 1. 18. Sunt lachrymae, etc. There are tears for misfor- 
tunes, and human affairs touch the heart. Virgil's -lEneid, Book I., 
line 462. 

P. 86, 1. 26. Fouquier Tinville. The infamous public accuser of 
the French Revolution. 

P. 87, 1. 1. Has mended. Carlyle's note: Weber: M4moires 
concernant Marie-Antoinette (London, 1809), tome iii. notes, 106. 



NOTES, 161 

P. 87, 1. 13. Treading the wine-press. Isaiah Ixiii., 3. 

P. 87, 1. 29, Saint-Bartholomews, Jacqueries, etc. All facts 
or incidents of French history bearing witness to the extravagance, 
wickedness, or tyranny of the French monarchs. See any history of 
France or general history. The gabelle was a salt-tax. The king had 
a monopoly of the sale of salt, and every one was compelled to buy 
seven pounds yearly for each member of the family, whether it was 
wanted or not. It is said eight thousand persons were imprisoned 
annually for breaking this law. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

P. 89, 1. 7. Monsieur le Comte. That is, M. Lamotte. 

P. 89, 1. 12. Desclos. This valet Desclos, it appears, was the only 
one connected with the queen's household that Madame Lamotte had 
ever met. She therefore had her accomplice, Villette, impersonate 
Desclos in the Necklace matter. 

P. 89, 1. 22. Ineffable interview. Carlyle's note: See Georgel. 

P. 91, 1. 21. Versailles Treaty. Sept. 3, 1783, between France, 
England, and Spain. It recognized the independence of the United 
States, and surrendered certain English territory to France and to 
Spain. 

P. 92, 1. 10. Cadeau, A gift, present, complimentary " bonus." 

P. 92, 1. 17. Heyduc. Originally an Inhabitant of the Hunga- 
rian district of Hadjuc; then a Hungarian soldier ; then, as here, a 
servant in Hungarian uniform. 

P. 93, 1. 6. So bounteous, etc. Carlyle's note : Georgel. 
Rohan's four Me'moires pour ; Lamotte' s four, 

P. 93, 1. 11. The Cloud-Compeller. Jupiter, who visited Danae 
in a shower of gold, and thus became the father of Perseus. 

P. 93, 1. 30. Parlement, Grand Chambre and Tournelle. 
The Parlement of France was the king's court of justice. It took 
cognizance of offences against the king, peers, bishops, and higher 
dignitaries, and there was no appeal from its decisions. These terms 
all have reference to rooms or judicial organizations connected with 
secret and unfair inquiry into offences ; star-chamber proceedings. 



162 THOMAS CARLYLE. 



CHAPTER IX. 

P. 95, 1. 12. Armida Islands. Armida is a beautiful enchantress 

in Tasso's " Jerusalem Delivered." Directed by Satan, she entices 
Rinaldo to an enchanted island, from which blissful but sensual sur- 
roundings he is finally rescued. 

P. 95, 1. 22. Descends from her celestial Zodiac. Allusion to 
Endymion, a beautiful shepherd youth, whom the goddess Diana 
visited every night to look upon him as he lay asleep on Mt. Latmos. 

P. 97, 1. 12. Peep through the blanket, etc. 

" Come, thick night, 
And pall me in the dunnest smoke of hell, 
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, 
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, 
To cry, Hold, Hold!" 

(iliac&e^^, Act I., scene V.) 

P. 97, 1. 18. Linon mouchet6. Dotted lawn. 

P. 98, 1, 5. All is safe. Carlyle's note: Compare Georgel, La- 
motte's M4moires Justificatifs, and the M^moires pour of the various 
parties, especially Gay d'Oliva's. Georgel places the scene in the 
year 1785; quite wrong. Lamotte's *' royal Autographs " (as given in 
the Appendix to M^moires Justificatifs) seem to be misdated as to the 
day of the month. There is endless confusion of dates. 

P. 98, 1. 6. Ixion. For the story of Ixion see any work on my- 
thology. 

P. 98, 1. 21. Highest dalliances. Carlyle's note: Lamotte's 
Memoires Justificatifs; Ms. Songs in the Affaire du Collier, etc., etc. 
Nothing can exceed the brutality of these things (unfit for Print or 
Pen) ; which nevertheless found believers, — increase of believers, in 
the public exasperation ; and did the Queen, say all her historians, 
incalculable damage. 

P. 98, 1. 28. Philippe Egalite. Louis Philippe Joseph, Duke of 
Orleans. Though cousin of Louis XVI. he is believed to have con- 
stantly intrigued against him. When the Revolution broke out, he 
sided with the people against the royalists, and received the title 
" Egalite " (equality). He voted for the death of Louis XVI., but 
dujing the Reign of Terror was himself guillotined in 1793. His son, 
Louis Philippe, after vicissitudes of fortune, at the *' Revolution of 



NOTES. 163 

1830 " was elected " King of the French." His government not being 
satisfactory, he abdicated in 1848. His death took place in 1850. 

P. 99, 1. 20. Beaumarchais. A noted French dramatist of the 
time of Louis XVI. His play " Le Mariage de Figaro " had a great 
popularity and filled the theatre night after night. Carlyle's note 
here is : Gay d'Oliva's First Memoire pour^ p. 37. 

CHAPTER X. 

P. 100, 1. 2. Partridge the Schoolmaster, A character in Field- 
ing's novel " Tom Jones." He is shrewd, yet simple and unsophis- 
ticated. His simplicity and excitement at the play-house when 
viewing Garrick's Hamlet are highly entertaining. 

P. 100, 1. 10. Nisus and Euryalus. Firm friends and inseparable 
companions in Virgil's " ^neid.'' 

P. 100, 1.15. Through the thicket. Carlyle's note: See La- 
motte ; see Gay d' Oliva. 

P. 101, 1. 6. Don Aranda, An able and powerful Spanish states- 
man of the eighteenth century. As president of the council of Castile, 
he expelled the Jesuits from Spain. 

P. 101, 14. Pope Joan, " John VIII.," said to have been pope 
853-855. The probably fictitious account is, that an English girl edu- 
cated at Cologne assumed man's attire to elope with a monk. Arriv- 
ing at Rome, she earned a high reputation for learn^ig, and at the 
death of Leo IV. became pope. 

P. 101, 1, 15. Arachne. She was so skilful at weaving that she 
challenged Minerva to a trial of skill. Beaten by Minerva, she hanged 
herself, and the goddess turned her into a spider. 

P. 101, 1. 22. Tall, blond and beautiful, Carlyle's note: I was 
then presented " to two ladies, one of whom was remarkable for the 
richness of her shape : she had blue eyes and chestnut hair " (Bette 
d'Etienville's Second Memoire pour ; in the Suite de V Affaire du 
Collier). This is she whom Bette, and Bette's advocate, intended the 
world to take for Gay d'Oliva. " The other is of middle size : dark 
eyes, chestnut hair, white complexion: the sound of her voice is 
agreeable ; she speaks perfectly well, and with no less faculty than 
vivacity ; " this one is meant for Lamotte. Oliva's real name was 
Essigny ; the Oliva (Olisva, anagram of Valois) was given her by 



164 THOMAS CARLYLE, 

Lamotte along with the title of Baroness (Ms. Note, Affaire du 
Collier). 

P. 101, 1. 28. Palais-Royal, A famous assemblage of buildings in 
Paris, consisting of the old palace of the Orleans family, theatres, 
public gardens, shops, restaurants, etc. 

P. 103, 1. 18. Terror, That is, the Reign of Terror. 

CHAPTER XI. 

P. 104, 1. 8. Queen's bounty. The "alms" advanced by Rohan 
to Madame Lamotte for the queen, which alms the Madame kept. 

P. 104, 1. 11. Bend-sinister. A term of heraldry; a band or stripe 
crossing the shield diagonally from sinister chief (upper left-hand 
corner) to dexter base (lower right corner) . 

P. 104, 1. 16. Worth indeed makes the man. 

" Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow, 
The rest is all but leather and prunella." 

Pope's Essay on Man, 

P. 107, 1. 2. Un beau froid, etc. Georgel writes: "He arrived 
most unexpectedly in a fine January frost." 
P. 108, 1. 28. For the time being. Carlyle's note: Campan. 

CHAPTER XII. 

P. Ill, 1. 6. It was said, etc. Queens sign only with their 
baptismal names ; the signature should have been simply " Marie 
Antoinette." 

P. Ill, 1. 21. A glass door. Carlyle's note : Georgel, etc. 

P. 112, 1. 3. De par la reine. In the Queen's name; by the 
Queen's authority. 

P. 112, 1. 16. Horn Gate. There were two gates through which 
dreams visited the earth. Through the Horn gate issued true dreams, 
and through the Ivory gate, false. See Virgil's ^neid, VI., 893. 



NOTES. 165 



CHAPTER XIII. 

P. 113, 1. 5. " Caraffe and four candles." More of Cagliostro's 
mummery. A caraffe is a glass water-bottle. 

P. 113, 1. 9. To the glory of Monseigneur. Carlyle's note: 
Georgel, etc. 

P. 114, 1. 5. GEil-de-Bceuf. " Bull's Eye." A famous ante-cham- 
ber of the palace at Versailles and also bedroom of Louis XIV., so 
called from its oval window. It was the scene of many intrigues. 

P. 114, 1.21. Louvois, Marquis de (1641-1691), famous war-minister 
of Louis XIV. At first he had great power over the king, but after- 
ward lost some of his influence. During the laying waste of the 
Palatinate, when Louis XIV. forbade the burning of Treves, Louvois 
replied that he had already ordered it burnt to save trouble to the 
king's conscience. Whereupon Louis, in anger, seized the tongs 
from the chimney and would have struck his minister had not Madame 
Maintenon interfered. 

P. 114, 1. 23. Maintenon, Fran^oise D'Aubigne, Marquise de. One 
of the most famous personages of the court of Louis XIV. At first 
governess to Louis' children, she became his friend and companion , 
and after the death of the queen he privately married her. She had 
great influence with him and was all-powerful at court. She gave 
much attention to religion. 

P. 114, 1. 25. Marechaux de France. Marshals of France. In 
France a marshal is an ofl&cer of the highest military rank. 

P. 114, 1. 27. Sound like thunder. Carlyle's note : Campan. 

P. 115, 1. 12. She promised it. Carlyle's note : See Georgel. 

P. 115, 1. 16. La Reine vient. The Queen is coming. 

P. 116, 1. 1. Mirza's Vision. The " Vision of Mirza " by Addison 
is the subject of No. 159 of the Spectator. Mirza beholds a wonder- 
ful vision of the tide of time, of men crossing the bridge of human 
life, and of the ocean of eternity, half covered with clouds. When 
Mirza asked the genius who had called up the vision to let him pene- 
trate the clouds, the vision melted away, and he beheld only "the 
long hollow valley of Bagdat with oxen, and sheep, and camels graz- 
ing upon the side of it." 



166 THOMAS CARLYLE. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

P. 117, 1. 5. Hypocrisia. The Greek word, hnoKpdtia, or hiroKpunSf 
means the playing of a part on the stage ; hence our derived meaning 
of hypocrisy. 

P. 117, 1. 6. Mrs. Facing-both-ways. In the immortal allegory 
of " Pilgrim's Progress," Bunyan relates the conversation of ** Chris- 
tian " with one " By-ends " from the town of " Fair-speech," When 
asked the name of his kindred, By-ends replies, " Almost the whole 
town ; and in particular my Lord Turn-about, my Lord Time-server, 
my Lord Fair-speech, from whose ancestors that town first took its 
name; also Mr. Smooth-man, Mr. Faeing-both-ways, Mr. Any-thing; 
and the parson of our parish, Mr. Two-tongues, was my mother's own 
brother by father's side." 

P. 119, 1. 4. Minister Breteuil. Minister of the king's household, 
a personal enemy of Rohan. He and Rohan had been rival appli- 
cants for the Vienna embassy, and Rohan had received it. 

P. 119, 1. 14. Guy of Warwick. A famous Anglo-Danish hero, 
who performed feats of wonderful strength and renown to win the 
fair Felice. 

P. 119, 1. 24. Starve her, etc. Carlyle's note: See Lamotte. 

P. 120, 1. 5. In deep treaty, etc. Carlyle's note: Grey lived in 
No. 13 New Bond Street; Jeffreys in Piccadilly (Rohan's Memoire 
pour : see also Count de Lamotte's Narrative, in the Memoires Justi- 
ficatifs). Rohan says, " Jeffreys bought more than 10,0001. worth." 

P. 122, 1. 8. We read with curses. Carlyle's note: See Lamotte. 

P. 122, 1. 22. Farmer-general Saint James. A rich financier 
and disciple of Cagliostro, of whom the Countess and Rohan were 
hoping to borrow^ enough money to make the first payment. Saint 
James was a "new-rich" and was willing to do anything to gain 
favor at court. A farmer-general (French, /erm/er-(/eweraO was one 
who purchased the right to collect the taxes of a given district. 
Taxes are still *' farmed out " in Turkey. 

P. 122, 1. 29. He stands one day, etc. Carlyle's note : Campan. 

P. 123, 1. 10. Return from them swearing. Carlyle's note: La- 
motte. 

P. 123, 1. 12. Distraction in her eyes. Carlyle's note : Georgel. 



NOTES. 167 



CHAPTER XV. 

P. 124, 1. 10. On the serene of his, etc. Carlyle's note: This is 
Bette d'Etienville's description of him: "A handsome man, of fifty; 
with high complexion; hair white-gray, and the front of the head 
bald: of high stature; carriage noble and easy, though burdened 
with a certain degree of corpulency ; who, I never doubted, was Mon- 
sieur de Rohan." (First Memoire pour.) 

P. 125, 1. 3. Guy Fawkes's Plot. See any history of England. 

P. 125, 1. 11. Handed him a slip of writing, etc. Carlyle's 
note: Georgel. 

P. 125, 1, 29. The Bastille was the old state prison in Paris, espe- 
cially for political prisoners. Its storming by the mob of Paris, July 
14, 1789, ushered in the French Revolution. The key of the Bastille 
was sent to President Washington after the destruction of the prison, 
and may be seen now at Mt. Vernon. Marquis de Launay was gov- 
ernor of the Bastille at the time of the assault, and was killed after 
the capture. See Carlyle's " French Revolution." 

CHAPTER LAST. 

Missa est. From the service of the mass, where the priest says : 
Ite, [ecclesid\ missa est — " The congregation is dismissed." Here, 
our task is done ; finis. 

P. 126, 1. 21. Precisely with May 1786. Carlyle's note : On the 
31st of May 1786, sentence was pronounced : about ten at night, the 
Cardinal got out of the Bastille ; large mobs hurrahing round him, — 
out of spleen to the Court. (See Georgel.) 

To quote further from the account of the trial : "At length a little 
after nine in the evening, the decision of the court was made known 
as follows : — 

** 1st. The instrument which is the foundation of the suit, with the 
approvals and annexed signatures, are declared forgeries, and falsely 
attributed to the queen. 2d. Lamotte, being in contumacy, is con- 
demned to the galleys for life. 3d. Madame de Lamotte to be 
whipped, branded on the two shoulders with the letter V., and shut 
up in I'Hopital for life. 4th. Retaux de Villette banished the king- 
dom for life. 5th. Mademoiselle d'Oliva discharged. 6th. Caglios- 



168 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

tro acquitted. 7th. The cardinal acquitted of all suspicion. The 
injurious accusations against him, contained in the memorial of 
Madame de Lamotte, suppressed. 8th. The cardinal is allowed to 
cause the judgment of the court to be printed." 

P. 127, 1. 17. Circe-Meg8Bra. Enchantress-fury. For an account 
of the enchantress Circe, see Homer's *' Odyssey." Megsera was 
one of the Furies. 

P. 129, 1. 4. All men are liars. Psalm cxvi. 11. 

P. 130, 1. 28. Traditionary Prophecy. Carlyle's note : Goethe 
mentions it (Italidnische Eeise). 

P. 132, 1. 30. Coq d'lnde. Turkey-cock; used as a term of mock- 
ery, or derision. 

P. 133, 1. 11» Bulls of Bashan. Bashan was a country of Palestine 
noted for its tall men, its rich pastures, and its large and fat cattle. 

P. 133, 1, 21. Voleuse. Feminine of the French voleur, thief. An 
account of the trial reads: *' No sooner did the countess perceive the 
instruments of her punishment, than she seized one of the execution- 
ers by the collar, and bit his hands in such a manner as to take a 
piece out ; fell upon the ground, and suffered more violent convulsions 
than ever. It was necessary to tear off her clothes to imprint the hot 
iron upon her shoulders as well as they could." 

P. 133, ]. 25. Salpetri^re. Alms-house and mad-house for women, 
in Paris. Lamotte escaped after ten days' confinement. 

P. 134, 1.6. Tumblest thou, etc. Carlyle's note: The English 
Translator of Lamotte's Life says, she fell from the leads of her house, 
nigh the Temple of Flora, endeavoring to escape seizure for debt, 
and was taken up so much hurt that she died in consequence. 
Another report runs that she was flung out of window, as in the 
Cagliostric text. One way or other she did die, on the 23d of August 
1791 {Biographie Universelle, xxx. 287). Where the "Temple of 
Flora" was, or is, one knows not. 

P. 134, 1. 30. Bois de Boulogne. A famous and beautiful park of 
Paris, covering an area of 2250 acres ; a favorite promenade of the 
Parisians. 

P. 135, 1. 3. Villete-de-Retaux. Carlyle's note : See Georgel, 
and Villette's M^moire. 

P. 135, 1. 5. Catchpoles trepanned. Have the constables en- 
snared thee ? 



NOTES. 169 

P. 135, 1. 10. Castle of St. Angelo. At Rome. 

P. 135, 1. 14. Disconsolate Oliva. Carlyle's note: In the Affaire 
du Collier is this Ms. Note: "Gay d'Oliva, a common-girl of the 
Palais-Royal, who was chosen to play a part in this Business, got 
married, some years afterwards, to one Beausire, an Ex-Noble for- 
merly attached to the d'Artois Household. In 1790, he was Captain 
of the National Guard Company of the Temple. He then retired to 
Choisy, and managed to be named Procureur of that Commune : he 
finally employed himself in drawing-up Lists of ProscrixDtion in the 
Luxembourg Prison, when he played the part of informer {mouton). 
See Tableaux des Prisons de Paris sous Robespierre.'" These details 
are correct. In the Memoires sur les Prisons (new title of the Book 
just referred to), ii. 171, we find this: " The second Denouncer was 
Beausire, an Ex-Noble, known under the old government for his 
intrigues. To give an idea of him, it is enough to say that he mar- 
ried the d'Oliva," etc., as in the Ms. Note already given. Finally is 
added : " He was the main spy of Boyenval, who, however, said that 
he made use of him ; but that Fouquier-Tinville did not like him, 
and would have him guillotined in good time." 

P. 135, 1. 23. Tirewoman Campaa is choosing, Carlyle's note : 
see Camp an. 

P. 136, 1. 1. Pentagon of Rejuvenescence. " In his system he 
promises his followers to conduct them to perfection, by means of a 
physical and moral regeneration ; ... by the latter (or moral) to pro- 
cure them a Pentagon, which shall restore man to his primitive state 
of innocence, lost by original sin." Quoted in Carlyle's Cagliostro. 

P. 136, 1. 3. Empire of Imposture, The French monarchy with 
all its false and wicked institutions. The allusion is to the French 
Revolution. 

P. 137, 1. 13. Mourn not, O Monseigneur. Carlyle's note: Rohan 
was elected of the Constituent Assembly; and even got a compli- 
ment or two in it, as Court-victim, from here and there a man of 
weak judgment. He was one of the first who, recalcitrating against 
" Civil Constitution of the Clergy, " etc., took himself across the 
Rhine. 

P. 138, 1. 13. Sieur de Lamotte. Carlyle's note: See Lamotte's 
Narrative (Memoires Justificatifs). 

Lamotte, after his wife's death, had returned to Paris ; and been 



170 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

arrested, — wo^ for building churches. The Sentence of the old Par- 
liament against him, in regard to the Necklace Business, he gets 
annulled by the new Courts ; but is, nevertheless, *' retained in con- 
finement " {Moniteur Newspaper, 7th August 1792). He was still in 
Prison at the time the September Massacre broke out. From Maton 
de la Varenne we cite the following grim passage : Maton is in La 
Force Prison. 

" At one in the morning" (of Monday, Septembers), writes Maton, 
" the grate that led to our quarter was again opened. Four men in 
uniform, holding each a naked sabre and blazing torch, mounted to 
our corridor ; a turnkey showing the way ; and entered a room close 
on ours to investigate a box, which they broke open. This done they 
halted in the gallery ; and began interrogating one Cuissa, to know 
where Lamotte was ; who, they said, under pretext of finding a treas- 
ure, which they should share in, had swindled one of them out of 
300 livres, having asked him to dinner for that purpose. The 
wretched Cuissa, whom they had in their power, and who lost his life 
that night, answered, all trembling, that he remembered the fact 
well, but could not say what had become of the prisoner. Resolute 
to find this Lamotte and confront him with Cuissa, they ascended 
into other rooms, and made farther rummaging there ; but apparently 
without effect, for I heard them say to one another : ' Come, search 
among the corpses then ; for, Nom de Dieu I we must know what is 
become of him.'" {Ma Resurrection, par Maton de la Varenne; 
reprinted in the Histoire Parlementaire, xviii. 142.) — Lamotte lay in 
the Bicetre Prison ; but had got out, precisely in the nick of time — 
and dived beyond soundings. 

P. 138, 1. 24. Cribb's fist, Tom Cribb was a noted English pugil- 
ist of the early part of the 19th century. 

P. 138, 1. 27. Life of Giuseppe Balsamo, A " Life of Joseph 
Balsamo, known as Count Cagliostro," was written in Eome, and 
purported to contain certain confessions of his. 



Wijt Stutimts' Series of lEnglis!) Classics. 



To furnish tlie educational public with well-edited editions of 
those authors used in, or required for admission to, many of 
the colleges, the publishers announce this new series. The fol- 
lowing books are now ready : 

Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, 30 ets. 

A Ballad Book, .... 54 . . 

Edited by Katharine Lee Bates, Wellesley College. 
Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Kustnm, 30 

Webster's First Bunker Hill Oration, 30 

Edited by Louise Manning Hobgkins. 

Introduction to the Writings of John Ruskin, , 54 

Macaulay's Essay on Lord Olive, ... 42 

Edited by Vida D. Scudder, Wellesley College. 

George Eliot's Silas Marner, 42 

Scott's Marmion, . . 42 

Edited by Mary Harriott Norris, Instructor, New York. 

Sir Eoger de Coverley Papers from The Spectator, . 42 
Edited by A. S. Roe, Worcester, Mass. 

Macaulay's Second Essay on the Earl of Chatham, . 42 

Edited by W. W. Curtis, High School, Pawtucket, R.I. 

Johnson's History of Easselas, 42 

Edited by Fred N. Scott, University of Michigan. 

Joan of Arc and Other Selections from De Q,uincey, . . 42 
Edited by Henry H. Belfield, Chicago Manual Training School. 

Carlyle's The Diamond Necklace 42 

Edited by W. F. Mozier, High School, Ottawa, 111. 

Several others are in preparation, and all are substantially bound 
in cloth. 

LEAOH, SHEWELL, & SANBOEN, Publishers, 

BOSTON, NEW YORK, and CHICAGO. 



-^0 




